STAFF at a veterinary hospital are celebrating after a last-gasp plea to planners to allow the practice to move paid off.

Owners of the Animed Veterinary Hospital in Wickham had spent the best part of a decade trying to secure a new site for their practice after being told the lease would not be renewed when it expires on their Winchester Road site next year.

David Langrish and partners thought that was ample time to find an alternative site. However, some 15 failed attempts later - having been guzumped, turned down and passed over - time was running out.

Their luck seemed to have changed after a site was spotted in Shedfield, only to be halted by planners who looked set to turn down the application on the grounds that it was too far into the countryside.

Mr Langrish said: "This was our last chance. If this site fell through we would have to move out of the area, so it was really all hanging on the decision of the councillors to grant permission for us to work in a rural location."

In a last-ditch appeal to councillors Mr Langrish managed to sway the vote and narrowly won permission to build the £1m practice on the Culverlands nursery site in Shedfield and so safeguard the hospital's future.

Mr Langrish said: "We are delighted that the planning permission was granted and it is a huge relief for everybody. We want to thank our clients for their support, for the 141 who wrote letters to the council and for more than 500 who signed the petition.

"The new hospital will provide large and small animals with state-of-the-art facilities, enabling us to give an even better service."

Mr Langrish, who bought the veterinary practice in Wickham 19 years ago, said the hunt for a new site began in 1993.

Members of Winchester's planning development committee were advised not to back the plans on the grounds that the countryside location would not benefit from having a practice on site.

At the crunch meeting, councillors were sympathetic to the grim outlook for the surgery if permission was not granted.

A spokeswoman for Winchester City Council said: "Although the officers were recommending refusal, the members voted 7-4 to approve the scheme and so the power to do so has been delegated to director of development services Steve Bee, together with the chairman of the committee."

With a client list of 200 farmers, 3,000 horse-owners and more than 10,000 small pet clients, animal lovers from the New Forest to Fareham would have lost out if the plans weren't given the go-ahead.

The countdown is on to move to the new facility - which is just one mile away - by May 2003 when the current lease runs out.