Stratton St Margaret

A end-of-life car recycling business at the Powdrills industrial site in West End Road in Stratton St Margaret will revert to a more normal general industrial use. The operator, Stephen Bowers, who runs Swindon Metals Recycling has been given permission by the borough council to use the units for something else.

That comes after he was given permission by councillors on the authority’s planning committee to move the car recycling business to the former Averies site in Greenbridge.

That was previously a recycling and scrapyard where a fire burned for more than 50 days.

At that committee meeting one member Stan Pajak commented that the Greenbridge site was much more suitable for the car recycling and dismantling business than the Powdrills site.

Tadpole Garden Village

Details of the design, appearance and layout of a new health centre for Tadpole Garden Village have been approved.

Westdrop Surgery, which will run the new centre, has already been given outline permission for the building. It has now had its detailed plans approved.

The two-storey building will have 28 consulting rooms for doctors and nurses to see patients.There will be three rooms for minor operations and one for those recovering from such procedures and a pharmacy attached on the ground floor.

The centre will be constructed on the north eastern reaches of William Morris Way, between Great Western Academy and the junction with the A419.

It will have 88 parking spaces, which some people feel is too few for such a large facility.

David Wilson Homes, one of the developers of the new Tadpole Garden Village, has applied for retrospective planning permission for the foul water and sewage pumping station it has already started building.

While the station, which is necessary according to the developers because of problems with the existing foul water connections in the area, will be screened by hedges. It will be surrounded by houses, though none will be within 10 metres, though some, the developer admits, will have a direct view of the station.

This has upset at least one resident who has written to planners at the borough council asking the the company be told to find a better site, further from the residential development.

Salthrop House

One of Swindon borough’s grandest houses, Salthrop House on the edge of the North Wessex Downs near Wroughton, will be allowed repairs to its doorway and interiors.

Sophie Conran, the owner of the Grade II-listed mansion, which dates back to the late 18th century and was once owned by the Duke of Wellington, will be able to re-lay the curved stone steps at the entrance, which is constructed into a curved tower structure and refurbish the doors set into the tower.

Walls in the master bedroom will be removed and new partitions installed to create a small dressing room. Missing window shutters will be replaced and new radiators put in as well as structural work to masonry.

Penhill

The petrol station in Penhill on Cricklade Road will be allowed to stay open for 24 hours indefinitely. In June last year the service station was given permission to open all day every day for a year’s trial. In that time there have been no complaints about noise from the neighbours, and now the business’ application to extend the permission and make it permanent has been agreed.

Extensions

Applications for extensions to 10 houses across Swindon have been approved this week. All are single-storey structures.