The go-ahead has been given to a new dog park business on former Scottish Rural College land in Midlothian.
Gavin Mathison, who is based in Peebles, has applied to create four new dog fields on land at Boghall Farm, along with plans for 25 storage units.
The college sold the land last year which includes a shared access road, the walkers car park used by Pentland Regional Park and four fields to the north of the farm.
During the planning process the applicant offered to close the car park if it would help tackle concerns from Transport Scotland about the impact of additional traffic to the new business but no request was made for that as part of the planning approval.
In a supporting statement he said that he had experience of operating a dog exercise business in Fife and would be staggering the booking times of the four fields to manage traffic.
He said: “Based on my own experience of running three dog parks near Dunfermline, the anticipated traffic from this would be mainly around mid day, with staged entry to parks to spread traffic throughout busy periods.
“If it helped to reduce numbers, I could close the car park on my land that is currently used by Pentland Hills Regional Park.
“I have already spent a lot of money tidying this up as it has been neglected for a number of years but I appreciate if there are concerns for numbers of cars to this site, this would be a way to balance it out somewhat for the dog parks.”
Officers said that while the dog fields would result in an increase in fencing on the land it would be in keeping with the scale and character of other fencing within the regional park.
And it was estimated by the applicant that the four dog fields would attract less than a dozen visits a day with plans to accommodated them in the walkers car park overflow.
Planning officers said the overall increase in traffic for both the dog fields and storage units would not have a major impact.
They said: “The dog exercise area will not have a detrimental impact on the character and appearance of the green belt, Regional Park or Special Landscape Area.”
No objections were lodged to the plans which were approved along with conditions.
By Marie Sharp Local Democracy Reporter
