A TOP dog trainer, who moved from the town to the country to have more space for his dogs, has been told he cannot have kennels in a meadow because it is against local planning rules.

Now Trevor Johnson, head trainer at St Thomas' Dog Obedience Club, Blackburn, may have to demolish his kennels in a year.

Mr Johnson and his wife Susan moved from Blackburn to Rossendale in September.

In Blackburn they kept the dogs in kennels in the back garden of their Queen's Park home.

In Rossendale they bought a house in Burnley Road East, Lumb, with two acres of field so they had more space to train their dogs.

Their solicitor assured them there were no covenants or restrictions preventing them having kennels in the field.

But the day they moved with their four German shepherds, a planning official called to tell them their wooden kennels on a green concrete base were against planning regulations.

Mr Johnson, 49, a community psychiatric nurse for Blackburn Health Authority, said: "He said from 1991 anything erected in a meadow had to be of stone with a slate roof and we would have to apply for planning permission.

"We were dumbfounded. This is a meadow. What more suitable place is there for kennels?"

The couple applied for planning permission in November and tomorrow the council's planning sub-committee will decide if the kennels stay.

In a report, council planners advise granting permission, but only for a year. After that, the Johnsons will have to pull them down and restore the meadow to its original state.

The application is likely to be referred to the full engineering and planning committee for a decision as it could be a test case for wooden structures in fields. But the Johnsons have vowed to fight the case.

"I will even take it to the European Court of Human Rights if I have to. What would we do with the four dogs after a year? Have them put down?" said Susan.

Of nine neighbours contacted by the council, one complained of noise nuisance.

Eight others supported the Johnsons, saying that the dogs are well behaved, quickly settle down if disturbed and are a good deterrent to strangers.

Mr Johnson, a qualified Kennel Club instructor, has been training dogs for nearly 20 years and has won around 100 prizes for breed training, obedience training and agility.

He warned: "If the dogs have to go we will have to go."

Planners are concerned that the kennels are conspicuous and that the dogs bark at walkers on the Pennine Bridleway which runs along the back of the property.

Mr Johnson said: "When someone walks the bridlepath the dogs bark because they are a guarding breed.

"But this happens maybe once a day, twice or three times on Saturday and Sunday and the barking lasts for less than 30 seconds."

Planners say that if planning permission is granted it should be for only a temporary period to allow council officers to assess any noise nuisance.

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