Parish cave site has been given the go-ahead by the Development Applications Board.

Wilkinson Estate Ltd.'s request for planning permission to accommodate guided tours of the Wonderland Cave, on Wilkinson Avenue, was approved at a meeting of the DAB last month. But the decision was subject to the condition that the entire site be landscaped "in the interests of visual amenity'' and that building operations not be begun without the grant of a separate permit.

Wilkinson Estate Ltd. first ran into trouble early last year when it began fitting a lighting system into the cave and cleared protected woodland before permission had been given. And their first planning application was refused last October on the grounds that the proposal would "have a detrimental impact on an underlying cave''.

At the time, the DAB advised Wilkinson Estate Ltd. to include information in future applications that showed: An electrical lighting system would be used which would not adversely impact the cave walls; and That the entrance and exit would have appropriate signage and meet the health and safety requirements of the Building Code.

Last month, the DAB also advised the Wilkinson Estates Ltd. that the maximum number of people on each tour should not exceed 30 and that there should be no more than two tours in the cave at any one time. It also pointed out that the planning permission did not include "any feature which extracts, recirculates or uses the cave waters in any way''.