Dog lover gets go ahead for East Lothian pet crematorium after sharing personal grief

A dog owner’s personal experience of saying goodbye to her family pets helped inspire her plans to create a pet crematorium in the East Lothian countryside.

Melaney Fendick applied for planning permission to build the new facility on land behind her home in Boggs Holding, near Haddington.

And at a meeting of East Lothian Council’s planning committee she told them how her own recent losses had shaped her desire for the rural service.

She said the closure of the county’s only pet crematorium which had been based near Dunbar had left pet owners facing tough choices and urged councillors to back her vision for a peaceful place for people to say goodbye.

Melaney said: “Since the closure of the pet cremation facility families across East Lothian have been left with two choices – they can use an industrial service or make the journey themselves to a private facility, the closest being the Borders at the exact moment in their lives when a long journey is the hardest to bear.

“In the last 18 months I have said goodbye to three much loved dogs Hector, Luna and Raisin.

“Each loss was hard enough on its own. What stayed with me afterwards was the anxiety about what came next.

“The thought of my dog waiting days for collection at a vet practice, then piled in a van with other vets’ (collections) and driven for miles somewhere I’d never seen, cremated amongst strangers with no real way of knowing whether the ashes that came back were truly theirs.

“That uncertainty sits on top of grief so I made the different choice each time, driving the 65 mile round trip journey then back again to pick up their ashes because doing the right thing by my family members Hector, Luna and Raisin, mattered more than anything.”

Planners received nine objections to the new facility in the rural location with claims it was against countryside policy and should be on an industrial site.

However council officers ruled the scale of the facility which expects to carry out four cremations a day at most was small enough to be acceptable.

The committee heard from a representative for one objector who argued the access road to the new facility was a shared private road with other owners unwilling to allow it to be used to access a commercial site, however it was pointed out a previous business had run from the same address in the past with no objections.

Concerns about the fuel which would be used to operate the cremator saw a condition attached to the planning consent which would rule out diesel as an option.

Councillor Shona McIntosh, Scottish Greens, raised concerns about a lack of assessments of the environmental impact of the cremator but was told it had not been required because of the scale of the operation.

She said she believed that while the facility may be needed it was in the wrong location telling the meeting: “I do not think there is an operational requirement for it to be in the countryside.”

Fellow councillor Andy Forrest agreed saying: “We are a nation of animal lovers and there is a need for this but I believe it is in the wrong location.”

However fellow planning committee members disagreed with Councillor Colin McGinn telling Melaney her personal comments had swayed his view on it.

He said: “I was one of those people who though maybe it should be on an industrial site but I have been swayed by your comments today. I had not thought about it in such detail.”

And planning convenor Norman Hampshire recalled his own experience of the loss of a pet saying: “I have had the experience of taking a dog to Edinburgh, as it was the only place we could go and it was not a pleasant experience.

“This planning committee gave approval for an incinerator on the west of the county which is in a countryside location,. This is a tiny, small incinerator, in a country location where the impact on neighbouring places will be minimal.

“I think it is an acceptable location.”

Planning permission was granted with a condition restricting types of fule by eight votes to two with Councillors Norman Hampshire, Liz Allan, Cher Cassini, Jeremy Findlay, Neil Gilbert, Colin McGinn, Kenny McLeod and Colin Yorkston supporting it and Councillors McIntosh and Forrest against it.