Wiltshire councillors vetoed plans to load recyclable materials onto lorries outside the Hills Waste factory on the Porte Marsh Industrial Estate in Calne yesterday.

Hills Waste operates a recyclables management facility on the site, where around 300 tonnes of mixed cardboard and plastic bottles is sorted every week.

The company applied to remove a planning condition stipulating that lorries must be loaded inside the factory because it is dealing with an increasing amount of recyclable waste.

It argues that loading this onto lorries inside is becoming dangerous for workers.

Andrea Pellegram, technical services manager for Hills Waste, said: “We take health and safety very seriously and that’s why we put this planning application in.

“The members suggested we should move into a bigger building, but the reason we’re in there in the first place is because we applied in August 2011 for a bigger facility at Compton Bassett.

“That application is still outstanding because the council is unable to make a decision.

“We are just between a rock and a hard place and in the meantime I’ve got my staff in danger.”

But councillors were concerned that outside operations would affect residents and children as the factory is close to housing at Guthrie Close and St Dunstan’s Primary School.

Calne’s deputy mayor Heather Canfer said the planning condition was placed on the original application two years ago to alleviate noise, dust and smells.

She said: “This is a very unusual site as the residents of the area are very close to the boundary. This is not an industrial estate right away from housing. The residents reserve the right to keep the present conditions.”

Instead some councillors suggested that Hills should take a closer look at its management plan to stagger the arrival of lorries at the factory rather than seeing several lorries arrive at once.

Coun Glenis Ansell said: “I am concerned that Hills are asking us to short-change their management process.

“When I walk past the site, which is regularly, it doesn’t seem to me to be busy.

“They have been on the site for two years and they are now saying they are a victim of their own success. I would have expected a firm like that to have planned for their own growth.”

“They haven’t demonstrated that they have tried any other measures.”

Planning permission to operate at the Porte Marsh factory finishes on October 31 next year.