Day care company to relocate to Blackhall Colliery

Various rumours about the potential future use of Chimneys (known locally as The Trust) on East Street in Blackhall Colliery have been circulating around the village for a few weeks now and a query was raised at the most recent PACT meeting held last week (please see post dated Thursday 21 March 2019 for background details).

Since then we've made a series of enquiries with the council to see if anyone has contacted them to seek advice on which planning permissions may be required to change the use of the property to another type of business, and on each occasion the council has confirmed that no one has approached them in relation to the building or any future use.

With this in mind we asked them to visit the site yesterday morning to see if they could get a firm indication of what the owner intends to do with the building. Planning officers spoke on site to the owner yesterday and we've now received the following email confirming the intended future use of the building:

Dear Rob,

Further to your email we have today visited the site.

We managed to catch the owner of the property and he advised that he has granted a lease to a company who currently operate a facility in a village nearby. He gave us their contact details and requested that we liaise directly with them.

We have managed to speak to the company who confirmed the information given to us by the owner. They have a lease to occupy the property from 1^st July. They briefly outlined their intention to close their existing facility and open this one as a replacement.

They operate primarily day care for persons with learning disability and sensory impairments to encourage them to strengthen social relationships within the local community. They will mainly be there through the day but there would  be some respite with overnight stays for children/young person so parents/families can have a break .

We have formally requested that they send in further information and they have agreed that they will send in an email. Once we have this we will be able to establish the precise nature of planning permissions needed and will endeavour to get a quick submission of an application which will hopefully quell some of the rumours that are currently circulating within the community.

I trust that the above is of assistance but please give me a call if you have any queries.

We've asked the planning department to contact us as soon as the required information has been processed and we'll update progress as soon as we have any additional information.