Dog trainer taken to court for planning breach

A sheep dog trainer from Bromsberrow Heath has received an 18 month conditional discharge for failing to comply with a planning enforcement notice.

Ms Angela Blackmore pleaded guilty to breaching a Planning Enforcement Notice at Lower Foxhall Farm in Phocle Green (Ross-on-Wye) with the unpermitted erection of fencing and polytunnel for sheep dog training, and for unauthorised change of land use from agricultural to mixed use agricultural and residential and creation of access track.

Ms Blackmore received a conditional discharge for 18 months and was ordered to pay costs of £300 and a £20 victim surcharge.

The court heard that in 2017 Ms Blackmore applied for retrospective planning permission to keep sheep dogs on the site, and to retain a temporary fence and new access road, but this was rejected. In February 2018, the council’s Planning Enforcement Officers issued an enforcement notice giving Ms Blackmore six months to return the site to its previous condition. However this work was not completed and the notice was breached.