CONTROVERSIAL plans by Hills Waste to extend its waste tip at Lower Compton, near Calne, have been approved by a government inspector who dismissed fears from people living nearby.

A report just published by the Planning Inspectorate said: "It is concluded that the proposed retention and extension of the Lower Compton materials recycling facility is acceptable in principle."

The inspector also decided that the appeal by Hills was supported by an adequate environmental statement and that the development would only generate a very small percentage increase in the amount of lorries using the site and not affect traffic flow or air quality in Calne.

During the appeal people living nearby pointed out that the community had already done its bit towards the need of waste management and that the new recycling centre should be nearer to main roads.

But the inspector concluded: "On balance, however, those local concerns, no matter how genuine or widely shared, cannot reasonably be judged to amount to an overriding consideration in the face of legal and technical evidence that the development is in accordance with the adopted development plan and would not cause planning harm.

"It has to be born in mind that the comparatively recent adoption of the part of the development plan which allocates the appeal site for waste use, followed a finding of soundness at independent public examination.

"That process will have involved the local community in accordance with the Localism Act."

He concluded that the development was sustainable and should be allowed.

Last year an inquiry held at the Civic Centre in Trowbridge, was halted by inspector Brian Sims just hours after it opened to the disgust of more than 30 members of the Calne and District SOS group who were at the meeting.

At the time Louisa Reis, of The Freeth, Compton Bassett,who has been campaigning against the Hills site for ten years, said: "I missed my child's first day at school to get here today. This is so important to us, I cannot tell you. It is life changing. It is wrong to live with this amount of uncertainty.

Wiltshire Council originally objected to the plan but did not send any officers to object at the inquiry.