Monday 12 January 2015

Raquety Farm seeks to Diversify

Just over the river from the Warren is the land of Raquety Farm, which is an organic farm, and the riverside there is part of the local SSSI (Site of Special Scientific Interest). It also offers glamping (i.e. glamorous camping), camping and bed and breakfast. They have a canoe launch point on the river, and Hayfield Gardens, the community gardens, is on their land as well. Ros Garratt, from the farm, was briefly Deputy Mayor of Hay a couple of years ago.
They have put in a planning application to extend the accomodation side of their business. They want to build a log cabin and six "eco-pods" for visitors to stay in, together with a waste treatment plant, and a new car park for twelve cars, two spaces for disabled access and space for ten bikes, with a gravel track leading to it. It looks from the plan (available on the Powys planning applications page) as if the new road will go across the hillside just above the Hayfield Garden to the woods, where the car park and the cabins will be, on a line which is a field boundary. The woods are used for coppicing at present.
This is all on the Clyro side of the river, so it is the Clyro local council which is dealing with the planning application. However, it will be visible from the Hay side of the river, so Gareth Ratcliffe has asked the planning department to consider consulting Hay Town Council for comments. So far, there are four letters of support for the project, which is designed to be eco-friendly (the document from the architect, Jonathan Lees, is 274 pages long, so I didn't plough through it!)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Thanks. One of the most significant parts of the application has not been mentioned though i.e. the 'hub' which is a very large building that includes permanent living accommodation too. Take a look at page 46 via this link to see it - http://planning.powys.gov.uk/Planning/StreamDocPage/obj.pdf?DocNo=3227764&PDF=true&content=obj.pdf