A GARAGE which runs a motor sport and exhibition events business has been given permission to use an agricultural field for storing trailers and containers. 

Gareth Hockey, owner of the Bryn Garage at Penpergwm, near Abergavenny, had applied for change of use planning permission to cover the field next to the garage off the A40 trunk road that runs through the village. 

The application had to be decided by Monmouthshire County Council’s planning committee after a former ward councillor for the area objected to the plans, along with five local residents. 

Llanover Community Council also objected despite having initially recommended the plans be approved. It said members had changed their minds due to “the well-argued objection of residents living adjacent to the site”. 

The county council planning committee was told the events are held at venues across the country while the field adjoining the garage, which offers repairs and testing for private and commercial vehicles, is only to be used for storage and there is no planned change to the access to the site from the B4598. 

An officer’s report to the committee said a maximum of six event trailers and five storage containers will be allowed on site and operating hours limited in line with the garage’s opening hours of 8.30am to 5pm Monday to Friday, which would address some of the complaints from neighbours. 

Planning officers also said defining the use of the field, and a newly planted hedge boundary, would help distinguish the commercial area, which will have a hard standing surface, and the agricultural field. 

Conservative councillor Maureen Powell, who represents Abergavenny’s Pen y Fal ward, said she supported the application. 

“At the moment part of the agricultural field has a lot of their lorries and things on it by making this, parking and storage area, closer to the business it will remove those and this field can go back to agriculture, as it should be, and will be far more tidy. I can’t see a problem with it.” 

The committee approved the application with conditions including that the maximum height of all trailers and other equipment stored on the site is no more than 4.2 metres and that a restoration plan for the fields be submitted.