A DECISION on whether to allow a pet crematorium to be built in the grounds of Barnsley’s grandest visitor attraction has been put off after councillors raised a series of questions about the project.

Barnsley Council itself had made the application to install a building to use for cremating pets in a walled garden at Cannon Hall, separated from a playground at Cannon Hall Farm only by a wall.

Currently pet cremations are usually arranged by local vet practices and carried out by private firms. Costs vary but can range from between £30 for a small pet up to £100 for a large dog.

The council’s planning officers had recommended the scheme, which would have seen the new building replace an old potting shed, for approval and a meeting of the council’s planning board was told that the authority’s conservation officer was satisfied with the design of the building and a chimney in modern materials, despite its proximity to the hall.

However, councillors raised a series of questions which could not be fully answered at the meeting, about how the crematorium would be fuelled, the emissions it would produce, whether it could be used only at night and why that location had been chosen initially.

Board chairman Coun Doug Birkinshaw suggested a decision was deferred until more information was available and the meeting agreed.

Full story in this week’s Barnsley Chronicle