Tattoo parlour to replace outdoors shop

A planned tattoo parlour in a Herefordshire town has been given the go-ahead.

Astral Ink will take the place of the Escape to the Great Outdoors shop in the Croft Court shopping centre, Ross-on-Wye.

The planning application for change of use by Steph Austin and Loren Hodgson drew 15 submissions of support and eight objections.

“Of these, many reference the potential for competition within Ross-on-Wye, resulting in an adverse impact upon existing businesses,” planning officer Josh Evans said in his report on the application.

“However, this is not a material planning consideration.”

The tattooists’ proposal “would not visually impact the primary shop frontage and would not appear dissimilar to the existing high street uses”, he concluded.

The permission restricts the studio’s hours to between 9am and 5pm weekdays and 10am to 4pm on Saturdays.

Ms Austin, who already runs an Astral Ink studio in nearby Mitcheldean, Gloucestershire, said she hoped to begin work refitting the Ross premises in the next few weeks, but a date has yet to be set.

Escape to the Great Outdoors said on their Facebook page in March that after two years in business, “footfall has not been what we expected and also sales in store not what we require to be able to support a bricks-and-mortar presence”.