PLANS for a wedding venue are set to go ahead after months of contention between Allerdale and a parish council.

Allerdale Borough Council had agreed to grant a licence to Ponderosa Weddings last December, which would have allowed the enterprise to rent out a field between Great Broughton and Broughton Moor to wedding parties or for special occasions.

In May, the parish council lodged an appeal against the decision, which was successful, and Allerdale were ordered to look at plans again.

The parish council argued that noise pollution within the village, the lack of permission for use of the nearby bridleway and concerns around public safety should stop the venue from going ahead.

Following the decision of the magistrates' court, Allerdale decided to re-look at the plans, and approved them in a licensing committee last week.

The council decided to re-approve the existing plans with one additional requirement for Ponderosa stating that “a comprehensive traffic management plan must be put in place and approved by the Licensing Authority at least 28 days prior to the commencement of any licensable activity at the premises."

Beth Faulder, of Ponderosa Weddings said: “We are very happy about the decision on Allerdale granting the application for a second time after the parish had appealed.

“We would like to think that now we have all info in place, and permissions from the landowner as we did prior anyway, I would like to think there wouldn’t be an appeal this time around.

“We would like to thank Allerdale for going ahead and not backing out of this case and standing by their ground.”

However the parish council have now voted unanimously to re-appeal the decision by Allerdale.

Mary Bradley, chair of Broughton Parish Council, said: “We were obviously disappointed that ABC decided to rehear this appeal despite the magistrates comments from the original appeal hearing.

“The majority of the parishioners are disappointed with the outcome of last weeks hearing and have asked that the parish council go to appeal once more.

"At their meeting last night, the councillors voted unanimously to register an appeal with the magistrates court.”