Agricultural store gets the go ahead (From Wilts and Gloucestershire Standard)

Agricultural store gets the go ahead

AN agricultural store can be built in open countryside even if the new Cirencester livestock market it is supposed to support is not ready to open.

Cotswold District Council's planning committee meeting voted to allow the Countrywide Farmers Store to open at Driffield's Fosse Farm before the market being constructed there is ready.

When previously giving John Ford planning permission to build the market at Fosse Farm, the committee imposed a condition stipulating the store cannot open before the market it is intended to compliment starts operating.

This was to avoid leaving the store standing alone in open countryside, should the market fail to open.

Mr Ford told the meeting he needed the condition altered because the Countrywide company could not start building its premises without a fixed date on which the store can open.

He asked permission for the store to open before the market, as long as it is not prior to August 1 and as long as the market's livestock building has been completed.

The meeting agreed but set a date of September 1 to give the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs time to issue market licences.

Driffield farmer, Lindsey Ockwell, told the meeting she objected because a retail outlet would be left in a commercially unsupportable area if the market fails.

She said: "If the market is not viable then it will not continue."

Driffield and Harnhill Parish Council also objected, saying it was not the residents' and district and parish councils' responsibility to risk facing unsuitable development.

Mr Ford said: "I don't want to get involved in village politics.

"I've done my damn-dest to appease the village.

"I would be as concerned as anybody if there are traffic problems in the village. I've lived in Driffield for 38 years."

Ward member, Councillor David Fowles, backed the objectors.

He said: "There is a fear there will be a Trojan Horse if things do go wrong."

But Councillor Sue Herdman supported the alteration, saying: "This is a matter of trust.

"There's no way he's not going to do this market."