Covingham: Objections from residents and neighbours and the parish council may have contributed to the decision to refuse MU Ozul, who lives in Toothill, permission to site a hot food takeaway van in the car park at Covingham Square.

People living in the flats above the parade of shops and in houses backing on to the car park wrote to the council objecting on grounds of noise and smells and litter.

Covingham Parish Council was also against the plan. It said: “This could result in diminishing returns for the supermarket and the pub. “ It said there was already an “over-proliferation of other fast-food outlets in the near vicinity, i.e. Greenbridge Retail Park.”

The reasons given for refusing the plan was an over-concentration of food outlets in the area and possible damage to the viability of the local centre as well as the impact on neighbours.

Rodbourne: The plan to retore a vital part of Swindon’s industrial heritage after 40 years of neglect has been approved by the borough council.

As part of the approval given to the Diocese of Bristol to allow it to convert the historic GWR pattern Store into a huge church, the diocese had to come up with a plan to restore the 19th century turntable outside its front door.

That plan has now been signed off. It said: “The existing turntable has suffered from years of neglect with no maintenance or repair in excess of 40 years, leading to significant decay.”

The church’s restoration plan says the timber parts of the turntable are badly rotted and all the wood will be replaced. The iron parts are in better shape – a lot of is corroded but can be treated by scarping away the rust and flake and only some chequer-pattern steel plate which has rotted through needs replacing. When finished the turntable will be painted in GWR’s colours of green and black.

Highworth: there has been a submission for approval for three self-build homes to be constructed on a new estate just south of the town.

Backhouse Highworth Ltd and TDH Property Development already have permission for a 67-house estate on Redlands Park on the Swindon Road. In the outline planning permission is approval for three self-build houses on the very eastern edge of the site.

Applications for the three four-bedroom two-storey houses have now been lodged.

Covingham: A new combined electrical power and central heating system could be installed in the large office and industrial building owned by Patheon on the corner of Kingfisher Drive and Dorcan Way. The building is already undergoing extensive works and an application has been lodged to put in a gas-fired system to run both the electrics and provide heating.

The generation of electricity by the system produces heat as a by-product which is then used to heat water which is pumped around the building. It saves both money and energy compared to two separate systems.

The application by Centrica Business Solutions says the unit would normally operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week but would be unmanned and monitored remotely.

One nearby neighbour has written to the council’s planners concerns at nitrogen emissions and the effect on air quality nearby.

Extensions:

Applications to build extensions to houses, or to build or convert outbuildings to habitable rooms have been made for: 11 Buckingham Road, lawn; 16 Heroncroft, Covingham, 73 Marney Road, Grange Park; 38 Locksgreen Crescent, Moredon; 8 Frilford Drive, Stratton St Margaret; Parsonage Close, Medbourne Lane, Liddington; 34 Henley Drive, Highworth and 11 Karslake Close, Eldene.

Such proposals have been approved for 5 Cambrai Road, Chiseldon; 8 Stadium View, St Andrew’s Ridge; 9 Fuller Close, Kingsdown; 69 Argyle Street, Gorse Hill; 43 Tawny Owl Close, Covingham; 11 Charolais Drive, Ramleaze; 3 The Copse, Blunsdon and 2 Selwyn Road, Tadpole Garden Village