A transport company is applying to set up a base for 15 container lorries next to a children’s nursery on the outskirts of a village in the Cranborne Chase Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

Boyes Transport bought a site in Zeals six years ago, which has largely remained empty. But the company says a site it rents in Sparkford is being redeveloped and it can no longer park lorries there at weekends.
The firm also has a workshop at its base in Stoke Trister. Its application to Wiltshire Council suggests there is a “strong economic need” for the firm to centralise all operations at Zeals.

It wants a change of use to allow 15 lorries to be parked there overnight, and to be allowed to stay coupled to trailers. It also wants to install a metal container security office, workshop and bunded diesel store and have parking for 20 cars. The application has met with a largely negative reaction from residents, the parish council and the Cranborne Chase AoNB.

Richard Burden, principal landscape and planning officer for the AoNB, said the application overlooks the “fundamental issue” that if development of the nature proposed is inappropriate for undesignated countryside, then “it certainly is not appropriate for being within an area of outstanding natural beauty.”

He added that a landscaping scheme stipulated in 2016, when the site was allowed to store trailers, has not been completed and that a revised scheme has not been submitted by a qualified landscape professional.
Zeals Parish Council is also trenchant in its opposition. In a statement, it says that since 2016, there have been people living there in a broken-down coach, hardcore has been laid and materials dumped.

“The site has only been ‘cleaned up’ from a dreadful mess to make way for planners to inspect.” The site is adjacent to Leaping Frogs Nursery, which opened there in 2012 and caters for children from three months to five years. The council says there is “enormous concern” from parents for the safety of the children, as well as the noise and fumes of diesel engines. Of 30 representations made to Wiltshire Council, 24 oppose the application and six support it, mainly because of the potential for jobs and additional spend in the area.

Some also point out that the site is within 100 metres of the slip road to the A303 and there would be no need for the lorries to drive through Zeals. The protests centre on the failure to landscape the site, the potential noise, proximity to the nursery, light pollution and increased car traffic in the village.

The application is now closed to comments and will be considered by Wiltshire Council. George Jeans, the local councillor, says that if the recommendation is to approve, then he would ‘call in’ the application, meaning it would be considered by committee rather than an individual planning officer.

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