Development of Horton Park Children's Farm

A planning application has recently been submitted for Horton Children’s Farm, Epsom (ref. 11/00511/FUL). Although the summary of the planning application appears innocuous (extension to barn etc.), the underlying detailed documentation rings a few alarm bells!

Comments need to be received by next Thursday September 1st.

The application has been submitted by potential new leaseholders Kidspace Ltd; they have an option until February to take over the farm’s lease.
Kidspace already run two large indoor play areas within retail parks. One is in Croydon (Purley Way) and one is in Romford. They are aimed at children 12 yrs and under.

The plus points?
The indoor and outdoor play equipment will be new and revamped, the tea shop will be better, new party room, outdoor play equipment moved further away from homes in McKenzie Way.

Concerns
1) Children's Amusement Park not Children's Farm?
In the application, Kidspace reference two sites which they compare themselves to. One is Willows Farm (St. Albans) and one is Old MacDonald's Farm (Brentwood). These sites are different in nature to the existing children’s farm. Instead they seem like mini theme parks and country fairs all rolled into one very noisy mix.

This is the web site for Willows www.willowsfarmvillage.com

If you click on number 19 (Willows Sheepstakes sheep racing) you can view a short clip. Note the loud hailer/tannoy commentary. This takes place twice a day in summer every day.

There are also other activities where loud hailers/ tannoys/ public address systems are used frequently. Eg "Tristan the runaway tractor - number 25. There is also a children’s disco.

In fact, there is an action packed programme of outdoor events/shows happening roughly every 15 minutes throughout the day.

The submitted plans include sheep racing. My concern is that Kidspace are perhaps aspiring towards the Willows Farm model of farm (with tannoys/music/shows and possibly fairground rides) rather than the existing traditional style farm we have which operates without any of those things.

2) Opening Hours
The opening hours proposed are much longer than the opening hours on the current site - 9am to 8pm weekends 9am to 7pm weekdays.

3) Size of the New Wooden Play Area
The proposed outdoor wooden play area will be centrally located and further away from homes on McKenzie Way. It will however stand at 9m tall at its highest. The tallest of the current play structures is 5.5m, so significantly taller.

Asking For Conditions on the Permission
The deadline for comments on this application is next Thursday September 1st.

You can have your say by this date.

Planning permission on a site can be restricted by planning conditions.

I intend to ask for the following conditions:
• No tannoys, loud hailers or any other public address system or any amplified music on the site at any time to protect residential amenities and wildlife in Horton Country Park.
• No fairground rides on the site as they are not compatible with the site’s usage in my opinion and could be very noisy. The site has D1 (non residential education and training centres) and not D2 (assembly and leisure). D2 would include amusement/theme parks. We have Chessington around the corner if you want all that.
• The opening hours to be in line with other similar facilities in the area and not the 9am – 7pm or 8pm proposed.

You can comment online:
http://eplanning.epsom-ewell.gov.uk/online...l=LPNTDEGY8H000

The idea of development in Epsom is great and very positive for the area, don't get me wrong, it just needs to be done in the right way in my opinion.