A Gorgeous Spring Day

The header on this blog says "Infrequent Miscellany." I guess the emphasis is on infrequent since my last posting was in September 2008 --- almost eight months ago. A lot has happened in the past eight months.

We have finally filed our High Court lawsuit against the Malvern Hills District Council, Worcestershire County Council, their various officers, and the two computer forensic "experts" who invaded our home in January 2008. It took longer than I'd anticipated for the claim to be prepared (it's not called a writ these days) because our solicitor insisted on perfection. The claim was prepared by two barristers: one a QC and expert in this area.

The papers have been served on the three law firms who represent the three insurance companies. They all requested an extension in the filing time for their defences, and that's up at the end of this coming week. Marjorie and I will be curious to see what defences they have.

Because most of the relevant folks at the Malvern Hills District Council have a conflict of interest with us (they're personally being sued by us) we asked to have someone else handle the ongoing renewal saga of the licenses for the dog resort and our small group of wild boar. The Council was, of course, offended --- but I wonder how they would feel if the roles were reversed, and we'd invaded their homes.

The Council adopted the 1993 model license conditions for boarding kennels in July of last year: it took them a mere 15 years to discover these conditions and adopt them. The model conditions specify that an isolation kennel be located five meters or more from existing kennels.

We have an upper barn that we thought would be a perfect location. It's quite a distance from the dog resort and is of solid construction. Our plan was to put a prefabricated isolation kennel in an enclosed, warm area of the barn. Our planning experts told us that we could do so without planning permission, but the Malvern Council wanted us to submit a full-blown planning application for "change of use."

(Incidentally, we have not needed an isolation facility at any time since we opened the dog resort in 2004. And should a dog become ill we would --- of course --- immediately take them to one of the two vets that we on 24/7 call.)

We were reluctant to apply for planning --- we knew that this would simply stir up our neighbour and her small coterie of nimbies. Our planning consultants told us this wouldn't be a problem, and (in fact) the Council planning officers recommended the approval of our application. But Tom Wells (remember him?), never one to miss an opportunity to grandstand, ticked the box that required our planning application to be considered by the full planning committee. And the political hacks turned it down.

Our planning experts were so incensed that they offered to handle the appeal at no cost to us. Our neighbour assumed a complete victory: no isolation kennel = no license = no dog hotel.

Out I went with my tape measure, and calculated that if we simply moved the door on one of the stables we could locate the isolation kennel 10 meters from the other dog suites. We relayed this plan to the Malvern Hills District Council and they approved my suggestion.

Door moved, other improvements made, and fire exit and muster point signs installed, and we have been re-licensed:

I ordered the silly muster point sign via the internet. I guess I didn't appreciate how big it would be: I still think in the "old money" of feet and inches. When the sign arrived it was more appropriate for a motorway than our garden. The solution? Obvious --- put it on the outside of our fence (but on our track) facing our neighbour's home. Let her enjoy it.

The gardens are looking fantastic, the two pools are clean and sparking, and we're ready to welcome our very important doggie guests during the coming summer months.