The owners of a 114-year-old garden centre have been told they must tear down three shops they built on their land by February or face a £20,000 fine and criminal conviction. Anthony and Nicola Halse, who own Sunnyside Nurseries at Chepstow Road in Langstone, Newport, say they’ve fought Newport City Council’s decision for two years but are now resigned to seeing a significant portion of their business flattened.
Anthony’s family wished to expand their business in 2017 when they began to build the three impressive, colourful cabins next door to the garden centre on the idyllic, leafy site. Nicola has been operating a gifts business from one of the cabins since 2018, but after Rae Barton’s fruit and veg shop took over the running of one cabin in 2020 and Anthony’s sister opened an arts and crafts space in the other, Newport council sent an enforcement notice to the couple in August 2020 demanding they stopped operating businesses from the cabins as they had not received planning permission.
Despite two years of battling to find alternatives the couple say they now believe they have no choice but to say goodbye to their dream venture. It will mean six jobs are lost and that they have wasted £12,500 in administration costs while appealing the decision, they have said.
“It was going brilliantly, I was even thinking about expanding with a new workshop on site so we could make more space here,” Nicola said from her gift shop which is jam-packed with ornaments, decorations, artwork and more. She has worked from the cabin for two years and says it’s the most she’s ever enjoyed working because it helps her cope with her fibromyalgia and encephalomyelitis (ME).
“This is what it was, just this bit of land,” she says, showing photos on her phone of a muddy field which she fears the site will have to return to. “It’s now upsetting being in here if that makes sense. I know I have to be here and keep going for the customers until Christmas. But it just feels like everything has been taken away from me.”
Giving a tour of the gift shop, Nicola’s pride for the business shines through. It’s taken her five years to grow it. “It’s been a solid five years of really hard work since I’ve been here,” she continued. "I’ve never done it for profit. I’ve done it because it really has helped me mentally meeting people every day.
“People have told me to go somewhere else, but going somewhere else as a small business isn’t easy. Prices would triple, I couldn’t cope with the overheads. I’ve had no bills to pay here which is why I’ve been able to do it.”
Newport council says Anthony and Nicola have had a number of failed planning requests and appeals and are aware of the reasons they now must stop operating from the cabins. Anthony says he accepts he hadn’t approached the council before the cabins were installed and had been assured by the cabin-construction companies that no planning permission was required.
The couple say they understand the reasons for the refusal are “because the council says the cabins are not in keeping with the countryside”. A spokesperson for the council said: “Permission was refused for the three retail units on the grounds that they would have a significant adverse effect on sustainability and were not justified on this rural site.”
After receiving the first notice in August 2020 Anthony, who has also lived on the site for 45 years, immediately responded with a retrospective planning request - but when that was rejected it dawned on him what could be around the corner.
“It’s cost us 12 and a half grand appealing it, and they’ve all been refused,” he said. “I was shocked, I really thought it would be just a case of getting everything rubber stamped. I felt we had a good case with good presentations on why we should keep them from two local councillors.
“We’ve gone to the Welsh Assembly and a man came here in February to inspect. We weren’t allowed to talk to him. He sided with the council. I think I’m a reasonable chap. I wouldn’t have minded if they’d said: ‘Right, carry on as you are but the conditions are no expansion.’ That wouldn’t have been a problem.”
The couple now have until February 23 to stop operating and dispose of the cabins. They both thanked the community for backing them with a petition which has gained more than 3,500 signatures online and in the store. They said they were shocked the petition has never been mentioned in planning decision meetings.
Even on a Monday morning the site is busy with many people milling around outside the cabins, garden centre, and Cabin Cwtch café opposite. “This is café culture, it’s people supporting their local businesses,” Anthony said. "The cabins having to go will have a huge impact on the garden centre because people come here to mill around and enjoy the experience, and then they often buy something from the garden centre.”
“We get a lot of people walking here and having a day out,” Nicola said. “It’s been really good here. We live with a small glimmer of hope it can carry on.”
A Newport City Council spokesperson said: "The owners are fully aware of why they have been asked to remove the cabins as they have been the subject of a number of planning applications as well as an unsuccessful appeal against decisions to refuse planning permission and an enforcement notice. Planning applications for a log cabin outbuilding and the retention of a single-storey workshop on the nurseries site in Chepstow Road were refused on more than one occasion in 2020.
"In 2021, an application was made seeking consent for the retention of three cabins and a storage/workshop on what is classed as an agricultural site in the countryside. Permission was refused for the three retail units on the grounds that they would have a significant adverse effect on sustainability and were not justified on this rural site.
"It was believed the proposal set an undesirable precedent for additional similar units/uses thereby resulting in a harmful proliferation of unjustified development. An appeal into the refusal of planning permission and the enforcement notice was dealt with by an independent inspector from Planning and Environment Decisions Wales.
"In the decision issued last month, the inspector found in favour of the council on all points: dismissing the appeal against the refusal of planning permission and upholding the enforcement notice."
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