Anger over farm 'plans' (From Gazette Series)

Anger over farm 'plans'

RESIDENTS are once again up in arms against a land-owner who, they claim, is trying to create an industrial site at a Berkeley farm.

The community surrounding Hook Street Farm in Lynch Road has already been mobilised in a fight to try to prevent what it has described as the "illegal use of the property for light industry".

But farm-owner Philip Stubbs said he feels he is being victimised by a small minority and everything he has done has been within the rules.

Last April Stroud District Council planners refused an application for development for light industrial use.

A 100-signature petition was presented to the council to support the strength of residents' objections.

One in Berkeley Vale Park maintained the owner of the farm is still continuing in his aim to create an industrial site.

"He has, yet again, pitted himself against Berkeley residents in this aim," he added. "He has greatly increased the width of the track leading past Berkeley Vale Caravan Park to his site."

The resident claimed the work involved removing a large hedge, moving services, installing an iron gate, and metalling the track.

He added: "Again, this has caused anger amongst local residents, whom he disregards completely."

Owners of Berkeley Vale Park - West Country Caravans - said the track, owned by it, had been altered.

A spokesman for the company confirmed: "The owner of the neighbouring farm has doubled the width of the track. The track is not in his ownership, he had no right and it will have to be returned to its former state."

But Mr Stubbs said he the work he has done has planning permission.

"We had to install a new water pipe and it seemed like the ideal opportunity to make good our access," he said. "There is planning permission from 1963 for a 15ft wide access road to our property. We have only put this back - as it had been getting narrower and narrower and needed tidying up.

"What is annoying is that that we have spent a lot of time and money making our access good and it is not even our job to do it. It was very overgrown and needed tidying up. Everything we have done is inside the law."

In January the owner of the farm applied to the council for a certificate of lawfulness for the work already completed.

Senior planning officer David Corker said the application was later withdrawn.

"I did write to the appellant on a number of matters for which no evidence was provided to support the application," he said. "It is an ongoing situation and I have written to the landowner on a number of matters concerning the site."