A NEW bike store and workshop will be built in West Cumbria if plans gain approval.

In what could prove to form part of the wider ‘Cycling Through Ennerdale’ project, the building would be based at Fearon Place caravan and camping site at Cleator Moor.

According to the applicants Mr and Mrs Sharpe, just the one building is proposed on the site.

It is proposed to service the existing camping site, which has no amenity block and is currently serviced by two mobile toilets. These will become redundant and replaced by the new facility.

The proposed building is sited at the entrance and would be on the site of a derelict and dilapidated former agricultural building. The plan is for a single-storey building, modest in scale and one which will merge in with its surroundings.

Neighbouring developments include a dwelling and outbuildings opposite at High Waterside, but the proposed amenity building “will not impact on these existing buildings, and the scale can be justified in relation to these adjoining buildings,” the applicant asserted.

In planning documents submitted to the Lake District National Park they confirmed further: “The proposal accords with planning policy which encourages tourism in designated locations in the National Park, and this site is already an established caravan and camping site in a tourist location.

“The proposal is therefore linked to the existing and adjacent use [and] includes a bike store and workshop.

“The reason for this is that my applicant has already held discussions with the ‘Cycling through Ennerdale’ project, and Fearon Place has been established as a possible location for a base for the cycle hire facility for tourists.”

The application continues: “This project was put on hold due to lack of Lottery Funding, but may now be reactivated with funding via the government granting of a major sum for Cleator Moor, and included in that was the possibility of the extension of the cycle track from Wath Brow through to Ennerdale, which would pass Fearon Place demolished and the site cleared.

“It is close to the car park for the site and is related well to the open space and features on the site and the wider landscape.”

Readers can view the plans at lakedistrict.gov.uk, quoting the reference number 7/2021/4079.