Lift Off for Stevenson’s World-Famous Rocking Horses

Hume Planning, working alongside Hollaway Architects, is proud to have helped in negotiating a complicated and unique planning proposal that provides a long-term vision for the world renowned, and family run, Stevenson’s Rocking Horse Company.

Stevenson’s had operated from two different sites at Bethersden and near High Halden which were not operationally efficient. The approved “enabling” scheme delivers a beautifully designed building by the Hollaway team, comprising a brand new workshop, with a museum and other community facilities financed by 22 executive homes on a greenfield site, which also delivered 9 affordable dwellings at the existing Bethersden workshop site where local need housing had been identified.

The approved scheme has been the culmination of two years of discussion with the LPA and other key stakeholders. As well as addressing restrictive planning policy issues, the Hume Planning and Hollaway teams led on the resolution of complicated technical issues, including flood risk and drainage, ecology, highways, viability and landscape.

The Hume Planning Team are very pleased to play a part in assisting Stevensons plan to grow through this unique “planning package” and we now wish them all the best with the construction stage that will follow shortly.  We are also grateful to Ashford Borough Council Planning Officer’s who worked collaboratively with the team and for members of the committee who recognised the benefits of the proposal which support the growth of Stevenson’s as such an important company.