A PLAN to expand an industrial site on the outskirts of a village have today (Wednesday, May 8) have been approved - despite the protests of residents.

The owners of Twinsburn Farm, a cattle bedding and industrial burning site near Heighington, faced 13 objections to the building of a large building to store wood chippings.

Residents told a meeting of Darlington Borough Council's pklanning commitee that an expansion of operations at the sprawling site – already the subject of complaints over noise, light pollution and spreading dust – would further exacerbate problems for residents.

The owner of a home, which overlooks the farm, pleaded with planning officials to “strongly enforce” how the site is operated and to consider how residents could be shielded from the noise.

He said: “My wife and I suffer from the noise the current site generates and developing it will increase the nuisance.

"Our home is in sight of the site and we hear noise from it all through the night. Now we will have lorries coming up all the time as well.”

The storage building, which would be 80 metres by 25 metres and stand 8.6 metres high, would be used to store wood chippings collected from sites around the UK before being sent to the biomass plant in Chilton.

Around 15 to 20 lorries are expected to visit the site per day to transport the chippings.

Another villager asked for risk assessments to take place ahead of any decision on the application by Edgar Shepherd.

He said: “Risk assessments should be done because there needs to be protection from the dust. Some of the materials used could cause an explosion and if an explosion happens near the village, what would the consequences be?”

Planning officer David Coates said the storage building was a solution to the problems the villagers face.

He said it, together with extensive landscaping between the site and the village, would minimise the noise and light pollution and lessen the chance  of dust spreading.

The application was approved - on condition that landscaping is completed before building starts, a travel plan is in place to monitor traffic at the site and that no afternoon work is carried out on a weekend.