CHEETAHS could still have a home in the Cumbrian countryside after new plans for an enclosure were submitted to the Lake District National Park Authority.

The Predator Experience, in Ayside, near Grange-over-Sands, initially failed in its bid to obtain retrospective planning permission for the big cats' home in December 2014 on the grounds that planning officers thought it was 'alien and incongruous' to the surrounding environment.

But site owners Dee and Daniel Ashman, who live at Barn Close, have now submitted plans for a live and work dwelling for themselves as well as enclosures for animals.

According to the application, the proposal is for 'a highly efficient, well designed development which will positively contribute to the area through design and the retention of a highly attractive and popular visitor attraction which benefits the wider area'.

A statement on the Predator Experience's Facebook page said: "[It] will include new and improved guest facilities, wolf enclosure and new cheetah enclosure, to replace the cheetah enclosure we must remove.

"It is a massively exciting project for us. It will improve the housing for Maska and Kajika, our wolf hybrids, protect our cheetahs and give us the opportunity to offer amazing visitor facilities going forward. A great deal of thought has been put into how things are designed from the interior of the enclosures, to how the development can be sympathetic to the environment in which it sits. The building itself is stone faced and green roofed. Green energy will be to the forefront, which is important to us."

To find the full application on the LDNPA website visit www.lakedistrict.gov.uk/planningreference and type in reference number 7/2016/5064.