HORSERIDERS have condemned a ‘dangerous’ plan to allow a car repairs workshop to set up shop on a well-used Green Belt bridleway.
The owners of Cold Hall Farm, in Kiln Road, Stanford Rivers, are seeking retrospective permission to run a car body repairs shop in an on-site barn.
The farm is on an isolated private road which makes up part of a circular bridleway route, popular with horse owners, ramblers and dog-walkers.
But - despite receiving objections from riders, residents and North Weald Council - Epping Forest District councillors look set to grant permission at a meeting on Wednesday (August 1) after planning officers recommended the proposals be approved.
Yvonne Toms, 54, has kept her horses at nearby Little Tawney Hall Farm, in Tawney Lane, since being hit by a car while riding near Brentwood nine years ago.
She has presented the council with a petition signed by 28 of her fellow riders who also oppose the plans – which she calls ‘an accident waiting to happen’.
“I moved specifically because I didn’t want to meet any more vehicles. I went somewhere that I felt safe,” said Mrs Toms, of Harold Wood.
“Although it’s an access road to this farm, really it’s a narrow track, a dead end, and it’s in the middle of fields. There’s nowhere to get out of the way, so it would be rather unpleasant to meet traffic there.
“There are so few places like this and we don’t want to lose what we’ve got. I don’t want anyone else to be a statistic like me.”
Jo Howard, of Cold Hall Lodge, Kiln Road, is the farm’s nearest neighbour.
She said: “With the extra traffic, it’s really very difficult for horses to go past, particularly in the summer holidays.
“The traffic has to come right past us. We have to live with it every day. The area is not suitable for that sort of thing.”
North Weald Bassett Rural Preservation Society has also objected, calling the plans an ‘inappropriate development in the Green Belt’.
Spokeswoman Doreen Lodge said: “Our main objection was that it’s only a bridleway and it’s very well-used by horses. We just felt it was dangerous.
“It’s a beautiful piece of countryside and it just seems wrong to use a bridleway for traffic.”
The applicant was unavailable for comment.
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