Garage is an ideal place for business va va voom

The Scotsman - Business - Garage is an ideal place for business va va voom

File this article under the "My Roof Or Yours?" category. The author is Peter Clarke. The whole article is worth a peek, but here's an excerpt.

...My point is that, in Scotland, planners are hostile to people setting up projects or ventures in their garages, or even in garden sheds. Scotland froze land use in 1947, when it all ceased to be the matter of the owner or tenants and became municipalised. Amendments occur, but they cause much heartache to municipal man. Streets set aside as domestic do not permit commercial use.

The HPs and Microsofts are heroic stories of enterprises starting at the most humble level, but flourishing far beyond their imaginings. Yet my point may be more crucial to little ventures that may never employ more than a dozen people in roles of only a modest level. Scotland’s local authorities have a hatred of the unplanned, spontaneous or untidy.

They have their "structure plans" and love and admire them. I’ve seen them taken out of drawers and polished: "Here be bungalows, here be shops, here be a swimming pool and here be light industry." We may not deviate from the maps because it would offend the entire municipal imagination.

This can get comical....