JOHN Makepeace is aiming to be back in the furniture-making business by next summer if he can get planning permission at his grade II listed Beaminster home to start up again.

The planning applications were made last week for the workshop, office studio and wood seasoning shed and to demolish a redundant chicken house in the grounds of Farrs, 2 Whitcombe Road.

The nature of John Makepeace's furniture business means that customers won't be expected to browse around the studio but ring before going to the house by prior appointment.

He said: "We have staff we might like to continue to employ and obviously we need a workshop. The fact that we are adjacent to the milk factory would seem to be an ideal place.

"The timber store for seasoning the wood is open-sided and we already had the building at Parnham. That will be removed to here."

Although Mr Makepeace had been more concerned with design, running the Parnham Trust and the house which was open to the public, he says he has enjoyed his breathing space from the business which closed and was sold a year ago.

"It has been like a sabbatical for me. It's been rather wonderful. It had been fairly relentless since we moved to Parnham in 1976. Frankly I am not pushing it, not doing any new design work but aiming to get the order book healthy for the spring. I am off to California next week to see a client, although that doesn't happen all the time."

At the moment some of Mr Makepeace's five staff are working on his new house and doing restoration work.