Agricultural plan given permission (From The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald)

Agricultural plan given permission

8:00pm Saturday 9th February 2013 in News

PLANNING permission has been granted for a smallholding in Potterne, despite concerns over privacy and traffic congestion.

The smallholding at Tyddyn Terrwyn in Mill Lane will have a home for an agricultural worker, a barn, greenhouse, eight polytunnels and a sewage treatment plant.

It will rear free-range chickens for meat and eggs, salad crops, vegetables, soft fruit and fruit trees.

The applicant and owner of the smallholding, Gwen Phillips, will also run courses about poultry.

Nine people and Potterne Parish Council objected to the plan, saying it would be visually intrusive and would set a precedent of development in the countryside.

Concerns were also raised that Mill Lane and the connecting Whistley Road were narrow and access would be dangerous.

At Wiltshire Council’s Eastern area planning committee last Thursday, planning officer Mike Wilmott said the site was not in the green belt or in an area of outstanding natural beauty.

The committee was told Mrs Phillips had set up a similar organic market garden enterprise with her now ex-husband at Moonraker Farm, Bottlesford, and an independent agricultural consultant said the proposed business at Potterne had been planned on a sound financial basis.

The committee voted by six votes to one to grant permission.