Sanctuary loses stables in planning row

Mary Hepworth and her daughters, who run Albert's Horse Sanctuary in Cawthorne, have been fighting a battle with Barnsley Council for five years after 12 stables, which house rescued sheep, goats, pigs and donkeys, were put up in the green belt without planning permission.

Legal proceedings at Barnsley Magistrates Court against the sanctuary were put on hold pending a decision of Barnsley Council this week, when committee members could have granted permission for the stables. However, consent was again refused, meaning that the buildings have to be pulled down by May 1.

Mrs Hepworth said that she and her two daughters, who run the sanctuary, planned to move the stables to another area of land and apply for planning consent once again.

She said: "The stables have to come down, otherwise the owner of the land will get prosecuted. The only thing we can do is move them and put them up again in another field.

"I know it's not the done thing, but the horses have got to live

somewhere and we don't have anywhere else to move to.

"We're desperate for help to keep these animals alive."

Barnsley Council's planning officers had recommended the planning application was refused on the grounds that the stables were an "inappropriate development" which have a "detrimental impact on the openness of the green belt".

At a planning committee meeting all but one councillor voted to refuse the application.

Enforcement notices were first issued against Albert's Horse Sanctuary more than two years ago and an appeal against those notices was unsuccessful.

The Hepworths were then given nine months from May 2008 to remove the buildings but, in March last year, they submitted another planning application, which was refused.

Although enforcement proceedings began again, the stables were not pulled down and the case went to Barnsley Magistrates Court.

The court case was adjourned until May 6, by which point the stables will have been moved.

Mrs Hepworth added: "It's easy to say I'm going to move the stables, but it's another thing doing it – to move 12 stables with the concrete, the electrics, and the animals, it's going to be expensive and it's going to be hard work. However, we haven't got an alternative."