It isn’t an offensive business – I cut hair ...but I’ve felt so uncomfortable
STYLIST CAUGHT IN ROW WITH NEIGHBOURS OVER SALON SPEAKS OUT
A DERBY hairdresser has said a long-running planning saga left her at one point wanting to turn away from her career.
Samantha Stokes opened her business, Halcyon Hair, in her garage in Quarn Drive, Allestree, in 2020 after moving to the area in 2018.
The 33-year-old had to apply for retrospective planning permission later that year, which prompted some neighbours to object to the plans for the business to be established permanently.
However, after the Derby Telegraph covered the story, there was an outpouring of support for Mrs Stokes and her business, with the article even persuading some readers to become her clients and offering to help promote her business.
She was granted planning approval last summer with a raft of stringent conditions, including only being open from 9am to 5pm, Monday to Saturday, and having a 15-minute gap between appointments. But now the salon is back in front of planning officers again, as the original planning permission that was granted only allowed Mrs Stokes to run her business until July 23 this year unless an appeal had been lodged to extend the time limit.
The stylist now wants her salon to be at her home indefinitely and is waiting for a decision to be made by Derby City Council, which over the past year has made three visits to her home.
She says she wants to put the saga to bed after a stressful past two years, which has involved conflict with other residents and pushed her and her husband to the brink of leaving the area.
She said: “When we were in the midst of the planning process, I said I can’t do it. I didn’t want to be at home, but I didn’t want to leave home. I said I would rather pull out than go through all this as it wasn’t worth it. But then you think, why should I let it grind me down?
“But we have the attitude now that even if we get planning approval, something else will come up. We have thought massively about moving.
“The planning permission is restrictive as I’m not in a business where 9am to 5pm works for a lot of people, so I have started doing more mobile appointments which means
I have had to change my insurance. I had to meet 15 conditions which were costly too.”
Mrs Stokes estimates she has spent £3,000 on the adaptations mandated by the city council and that she has lost around £10,000 a year due to the restricted opening times. An appeal to extend her hours was rejected last December.
Originally from Hatton, Mrs Stokes has been in the hair business since getting her first Saturday job in a salon aged 14. She moved to Quarn Drive while she worked at a salon in Campion Street, but when she had to manage the salon on her own, she moved the business to the renovated garage at her home.
Three weeks after starting to work from home in March 2020, the Covid pandemic struck, meaning she was closed until July 2020 before reopening. She now caters for all types of customers, including children with disabilities who feel more comfortable in a home environment – and love Mrs Stokes’ dog, a nineyear-old golden doodle called Basil.
She said that while she may have been unaware of the planning procedures, now she just wants to continue doing what she does best.
She said: “I used to work in All- estree at a salon on Blenheim Parade and a lot of my client base was Allestree-based, so for that it works for us and for my clients. Everything was fine [after opening] but because we had notice of the lockdown, I was packing people in, and when the November lockdown came, the day after I had to close, I had a letter from Derby City Council to say I’d been reported in February.
“In hindsight, I suppose I was naïve and didn’t really know what I had to do. I didn’t apply for planning as I didn’t really know I had to, didn’t really know where to start and it wasn’t something I was told about.
“It isn’t an offensive business – I’m cutting hair and I’m doing it on my own.
“It’s been painful. You didn’t know whether to smile or look away from people, I felt really uncomfortable.
“Because of the lockdown, I had nowhere to go. Emotionally, it was really hard because not only had I shut the salon when I didn’t really want to, I was then stuck in a box, in a pandemic.
“My anxiety levels were so high, I’ve never felt such a tightness in my chest, it was horrible. And when I did reopen, I felt uncomfortable as I felt I was being watched.
“We just want to be able to get on with our lives. It’s nice that we have had so much support and my clients are so lovely, it’s made it easier for us to stay.”
A decision on whether the salon can stay open indefinitely will be made by the city council’s planning committee in the coming weeks.
You didn’t know whether to smile or look away from people, I felt really uncomfortable.
Samantha Stokes