North Berwick hairdresser given go-ahead to open salon in her back garden

A North Berwick hairdresser has been given the go-ahead to open a salon in her back garden after deciding to downsize her business.

Emma Combe has been working in the industry for more than 20 years and applied to turn a garden room behind her house into a new base.

East Lothian planners approved the plans but added a condition that it is only ever used by her or future owners of her home with no independent contractor allowed to come in and use it.

In her statement to planners, Emma said she had decided to ‘downscale’ to provide a more bespoke service from her home with around six clients a day.

She said the plan was to operate three days a week and not at weekends when she often “works away on location providing hair styling for photo shoots and weddings”.

Planners said the salon met the guidelines set out by national policy over home working and micro businesses which supported them where it was demonstrated that the scale and nature of the proposed business would be compatible with the surrounding area and there would be no unacceptable impacts on amenity or neighbouring uses.

Approving the application for the change of use of the garden room in the Dundas Avenue property’s garden, they said: “The use of the erected garden room as a hairdressing salon does not, neither by its nature nor by its scale of operation, significantly change the residential character of the area.

“Notwithstanding, it can reasonably and competently be made a condition of a grant of planning permission that the hours and days of operation of the hairdressing salon business be restricted to 9am-5pm, Monday to Friday inclusive and that the hairdressing salon business is operated by the occupier(s) of the house and by no other party.

“Subject to the imposition of those planning controls the residential amenity of the neighbouring residential property will be safeguarded.”