A RACEHORSE trainer has been given the go-ahead to expand her stables – despite concerns over the amount of manure the horses will produce.
The greenlight is for six new stables and the same number that had been built without planning permission.
Grace Harris became the youngest dual purpose, flat and national hunt, racehorse trainer in the UK after being granted her licence by the British Horseracing Authority in 2014 when she was also granted planning permission for stables and an enclosed training area or menage.
A year later Ms Harris, who trains horses that earn thousands of pounds in prize money, was granted temporary planning permission to use a mobile home as a “rural enterprise dwelling” alongside the establishment of her Grace Harris Racing business at Home Farm in Shirenewton, just three miles from Chepstow Racecourse.
The temporary approval was further extended, after three years, until 2021 though Ms Harris hasn’t yet been in a position to build a permanent home. A Monmouthshire County Council planning report acknowledged the business is “growing”.
The council’s planning department has given retrospective permission for six stables that were added to the site without planning permission as well as approval for a further six new stables after Ms Harris submitted a part retrospective application in March 2024. The new stables will be finished in timber to match the existing block and planners also approved nine new parking spaces which will require some work to level the site.
The new permission will take the total number of horses stabled at the site to 26 which prompted local councillor Louise Brown to seek assurances on how their manure will be stored.
The Conservative councillor asked the planning department to obtain details on where manure would be stored to avoid unpleasant smells when there are strong winds, though there are no homes within 500 metres of the site, and the impact of spreading the waste on a nearby farm.
Cllr Brown used Horse & Hound magazine’s website for research and said: “Each horse may produce about 40 pounds to 50lbs of dung a day and with 12 stables this will be a considerable amount.”
When it became apparent the total number of horses would increase to 26, from 20 which included the six built without permission, Cllr Brown suggested the council lacked enough information to make a decision.
In a report which approved the application council planning officer Kate Young said environmental regulator Natural Resources Wales was satisfied with all the information provided in the manure management plan submitted with the application.
She said the principle of an equestrian centre had been established and the council has a policy to support rural enterprises and said: “There is an established business training race horses on the site that has been operating for more than 10 years. The additional stables will help the business to develop.”
Her report said the additional stables wouldn’t cause an unacceptable harm to local amenity or the area and there is already a “large well-established access onto Crick Road”.
