PLANS for an outdoor gym at Chepstow Leisure Centre can go ahead without the council having to obtain planning permission.
The authority’s Mon Life leisure service put forward a proposal to use a part paved, part grassed area of unused land next to the leisure centre as a weightlifting area earlier this year.
It will have a concrete floor pad, rigs and fitness equipment and an open-sided canopy cover and the area would protected by a fence.
The fitness rigs and canopy will be permanently fixed to the ground and remain in place all year round. Gym members will have access to the outdoor gym through an existing fire door, direct from the indoor gym.
The area will also have to be levelled and the leisure centre’s plant room will be cleared to house the free weights and other equipment.
Seven steel posts, set in a concrete pad, will support the four metre high canopy that will run for 16 metres along the side of the centre’s wall, with its other end running for 11.2m.
Two metre high black weldmesh fencing panels will surround the outdoor gym and there will also be a fire gate within the fence to access the assembly point within the grounds of the centre.
Mon Life asked the council to confirm the outdoor gym could be developed under permitted development rights that allow local authorities to carry out some works without applying for planning permission.
The planning department has now issued a certificate of lawful development to confirm the council does have the permitted development rights to create the outdoor gym and the fencing is also permitted development.
Planning officer David Wong stated in his report: “The land in question is within the curtilage of the Chepstow Leisure Centre that is owned, managed and maintained by Monmouthshire County Council, and the proposed works, structures and equipment are required for the purposes of the leisure function exercised on that land.”
The application revealed the council holds very little information about planning permission for the leisure centre.
A microfiche file, transferred from the former Gwent County Council, when the unitary authority was established in 1996 showed there was permission “for the construction of the secondary school” and the planning department stated the “leisure centre buildings would have formed part of that application” for the adjacent school.
There is also a reference in the council’s microfiche files to “the construction of a swimming pool” at the broad address but the council doesn’t have a decision notice on file.
The only planning decision on the council’s online planning register is for a gym and changing room extension in 2004.
