A Cirencester furniture making firm that has been operating from a large barn built without planning permission has been told it can stay - and extend the building to almost twice the size to meet growing business demand.

Edward Keyser, who owns Keyser Ltd and specialises in bespoke cabinet work, operates from family-owned Lady Lamb Farm, off the A417 near the village of Meysey Hampton.

In an application to Cotswold District Council, Mr Keyser stated that production work began at the workshop, which now employs nine people plus an additional part timer, in March 2017.

Acting on his behalf, Ijas Muhammed of Cirencester-based Plan A Planning and Development said that the business wanted to "regularise" its current location while adding more space to meet growing needs.

In making the part-retrospective application for the erection of the existing steel portal frame barn with a new matching extension (as a Class B2 light industrial building) he invoked legislation which currently allows a planning breach to gain immunity from local authority action where the creation of the building can be shown to have been carried out more than four years ago.

Mr Muhammed said: "Operational development associated with the existing building was completed well over four years ago" and added that Mr Keyser had begun his business, originally in a double garage, in September 2011.

He added: "It has since grown into a successful business enterprise which now employs nine full-time and one part-time employees. As larger premises were required in order to accommodate the growth of the business, the applicant erected a steel portal frame building... Work commenced on the building in October 2016 and, once complete, it has been continuously occupied by Keyser Ltd since 30th March 2017."

Requesting the extension, which would add a store for goods in/out, an extended joinery and machine shop and an adjoining finishing shop, Mr Muhammed said: "Further rapid growth over the past two years has meant that the furniture business is now in urgent need of additional accommodation.

"This is already causing several issues, from having to turn down work as it could not be undertaken without more room for additional workbenches and employees so as to avoid congesting the workshop and creating potential health and safety issues."

Additionally, he said that a lack of space to store finished items before delivery or installation had made it virtually impossible to start new work: "The lack of additional space is therefore clearly limiting the capacity of the business to grow and reach its potential."

Existing hours of operation for the workshop would continue, as before, from 8:30am to 5.30pm, Monday to Friday, while existing delivery arrangements would also remain in place.

Additionally, the bid cited the National Planning Policy Framework, which suggests that local authorities should "enable the development and diversification of agricultural and other land-based rural businesses together with sustainable rural tourism and leisure developments which respect the character of the countryside".

Planners noted in a report from case officer Helen Cooper that the current building measures 15.2 meters in width, 30.5 meters in depth and 4.5 meters to the eaves, being six meters at its highest point. 

The report added: "The proposed extension measures approximately 13.5 meters in width, 30.5 meters in depth and it would measure approximately 4.6 meters in height at its highest point."

It concluded: "on balance the proposal is considered to comply with Policies EC1, EC3 and EC5 as the proposal will support small scale employment within a rural area of the District and help maintain the vitality of the rural economy."