THE owner of Honeybrook Farm, near Wimborne, which closed suddenly amid a planning wrangle, has described his "heartbreak" at telling most of the 45 staff they would lose their jobs.

Sir Richard Glyn said he was forced to make the decision to shut after planners at East Dorset District Council turned down his application for two new barns to be built.

"We needed the barns in order to expand and to attract the number of visitors that we needed to survive," he told the Daily Echo.

"We needed to attract around 200,000 people a year and we had just less than 45,000 this year which is good considering we've only been open for 17 months over four years. It was important that we grew and provided people with enough things to see and do. "I'm sure if we had been allowed to build the barns we could have done it, but without them we cannot even consider moving forward."

Sir Richard said permission for the two barns was included in his original application for the green belt site in 1981.

"We didn't even consider that we wouldn't get it so it came as a complete shock. We have bent over backwards for the council and have done nothing wrong."

Sir Richard said telling staff they would lose their jobs was the "single saddest thing he had had to do."

"It was heartbreaking. A lot of them were part-time students but many had been here for some years."

Since closing, he said he had received a huge response from disappointed members of the public, including flowers and cards.

Honeybrook opened for a total of 17 months after first opening to the public for six weeks in 2002.

Councillors turned down Sir Richard's application after hearing the barns included in the 1981 application had disappeared and that permission did not extend to his proposal for two new barns, which owing to their scale and appearance, would dominate the farmyard.

Road safety was also an issue if visitor numbers grew, they were told.

First published: November 10