Tonight’s Halloween- which tends to mean that children are consuming more chocolate and sweets than usual.
Oddly enough, there’s an application on this week’s ‘yellow list’ of planning applications for using a building at Lubbards Lodge Farm Rayleigh for producing chocolate.
Application No :
09/00532/COU Zoning: Metropolitan Green Belt
Parish :
Rayleigh Town Council
Ward :
Downhall And Rawreth
Location :
Lubbards Lodge Farm Hullbridge Road Rayleigh
Proposal :
Change of Use From Farmshop Coldstore to Use for the Production of Chocolate, Provide Internal Alterations and New External Door.
Rayleigh Town Council: No objection.
NOTES
Planning permission is sought to change the use from a farm shop cold store to use for the production of chocolate, provide internal alterations and a new external door.
The application site is located within Lubbards Lodge Farm, to the western side of Hullbridge Road. The Farm contains a number of single storey buildings and polytunnels, which are used by a multitude of different business for a variety of uses. The application site is a unit which has a frontage on to Hullbridge Road (although set back from the highway by some distance)…..
If you are interested, you can download the full officer’s report here. (57kb)
The key sentences in the report are probably these:
….The likely number of visitors can not be predicted by the Council, however the unit does not provide a retail area. Therefore visitors to the business are likely to be those delivering goods/ingredients, or those collecting orders. Without a retail area it is unlikely that customers will visit on an ad hoc basis. The unit is relatively modest in size and as such it is considered that there is a limit to the level of production which can be achieved. This may limit the number of deliveries in and out of the site and the numbers of customers collecting orders. With limited space within the unit the number of employees is also considered likely to be minimal.
The site is located within the Metropolitan Green Belt. The change of use of this unit could potentially raise the activity within the site and effectively intensify the use of the Green Belt. Notwithstanding this and although specific details of the likely visitors to the site has not been provided, it is considered that against the backdrop of the existing units and activity on the wider site that the use proposed is not likely to increase activity on the site to a material degree or such that the established character and appearance of the Green Belt would be detrimentally harmed…..
The officers are recommending APPROVAL to the application, and so it will be passed unless any district councillor ‘calls it in’ before 1 pm next Tuesday.