Plans are in to turn land close to a York shopping park into a dog exercise park.
The location is close to the roundabout between Malton Road and Jockey Lane in Huntington, near to Vangarde and Monks Cross retail parks.
Now Julia Medforth is applying to turn the site, part of York’s Green Belt, into two dog exercise fields.
The 3.6 acre site has an interesting history as it used to be home to a York pub.
The Slip Inn dated from Victorian times. According to A Directory of York Pubs 1455-2004 by Hugh Murray, it was also known as the New Slip Inn.
He wrote: “It closed on 31 July 1968, still without an electricity supply. It was heated and lit entirely by gas.”
The pub was later demolished. Planning documents state: “Rubble from the old building is still present on the land along with some tipped materials, the site being mostly characterized by rough grass, unmanaged overgrown hedges and extensive areas of scrub vegetation.
They add that the site is “comparatively well-screened being enclosed by an overgrown hedge and trees on the main road frontage and is separated from the field to the west by a discontinuous field boundary hedge.”
The documents go on: “There is an existing field entrance with a metal gate towards the southeast corner of the site which leads off a Tarmac-surfaced layby on Malton Road, which was probably the original entrance to the public house.”
A car parking area and an access track from the existing field entrance on Malton Road are also part of the plans, along with “two small shelters”
To create the two dog exercise paddocks, the rubble will be removed, the land will be ploughed and re-seeded with grass.
The paddocks will be enclosed by 1.8m dog-proof chain-link fencing.
It will be open daily from 6am to 8pm. “Access for potential users of the dog paddocks will be by means of an online booking and payment system, which enables the gate to be opened,” a planning statement says.
“There is sufficient lighting from the streetlights on Malton Road and Jockey Lane to allow for use during the hours of darkness.”
The statement says the nearest house is at least 50m away.
“Dog exercise areas are generally not characterised by barking dogs and it is considered that the proposed use is not an unneighbourly one likely to affect residential amenity.”
The developer says: “The change of use from a nominal agricultural use to dog exercising paddocks, along with the required infrastructure of access track, car parking and shelters, count as exceptions to the normal restriction on development within the Green Belt.”
You can read and comment on the planning application here.
