A planning authority has launched action to regain planning control of one of the region’s leading centres for agriculture after it emerged businesses had been operating from the site without consent for years.
Thirsk Farmers Auction Mart has submitted six retrospective planning applications to Hambleton District Council, eight months after enforcement officers alerted the venture to several breaches of planning control across the whole of the eight-hectare site.
When the biggest livestock auction market in North Yorkshire opened after three years of planning in 2006, the mart’s chairman stated it had been “built for the future of the local farming community”.
However, enterprises found to be operating earlier this year at the countryside site between the A168 and A19, south of Thirsk, have included a domestic and commercial scaffolding and roofing business, which has ceased to operate at the site.
Other retrospective planning applications include the site’s use for Kando Canine Capers, a dog training and agility facility run by the 2018 para-agility world champion, which covers an area of 1,457sqm.
Agents for the auction mart said they were “seeking to regularise development at the site”.
Another of the planning applications is proposing the change of use of land for agricultural machinery and plant training purposes, stating Plant and Safety Training Yorkshire Ltd has been operating at the site since 2017 without planning consent.
The documents state: “At present, the business provides training to over 30 local farms, including specialist advice on a variety of safety measures related to farm wider and plant and machinery. The business also provides a variety of accredited training courses, including confined spaces training courses, streetworks training courses and utility excavation.
“Whilst the use of the site is not strictly ancillary to the operation of the adjacent auction mart, it is nonetheless a clearly compatible use and not detrimental to the functioning of the auction mart.”
The proposals state the site has also been used by not-for-profit organisation Richmondshire Thirsk Dales Gymnastics since 2019, becoming “a well-established indoor sports facility serving up to 300 children from the Thirsk area”.
A planning application has also been submitted for personal training studio Powerburn, which has been operating at the since January 2019 and has become “a well-established personal training studio offering elite fitness coaching, health management assessments and nutritional support within one-to-one and small class settings”.
The mart has also applied for retrospective consent to change of use of land to form external machinery storage compound. internal office and equipment maintenance area and to create a secure compound to be used for repair and washdown of vehicles.
In the applications, agents for the mart state the nature of much of the activity taking place at the site “sits comfortable with the prevailing commercial use of the wider site as an auction mart”.
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