A FENCE put up at an industrial estate without planning permission can remain but storage containers behind it will have to be moved. 

However Torfaen Borough Council’s planning department has given temporary planning permission for the eight containers on the parking area opposite 37 Court Road on the Court Road Industrial Estate in Llantarnam. 

Planning officer Justin Jones, who approved the application to retain the 2.4 metre high green mesh fence, stated in his report the containers are “harmful” but said: “A temporary three-year permission would be reasonable and allow the applicant the opportunity to find an alternative site.” 

He said the containers “have a harmful impact on the landscape strip” which is intended as an “important softening of the industrial estate edge” and therefore the containers couldn’t be allowed permanently. 

A condition will also limit where the containers can be sited.

Mr Jones approved the application for the fence, which was put up in June last year, and said a number of units on the estate, which was designed as open plan when built in the 1980s, have since been enclosed by fencing and there is also a two metre high, green fence separating the site from the railway line. 

Chorley-based property firm FI Real Estate Management, which made the application, stated the fence had been put up to prevent unauthorised parking as a matter of urgency. 

The application form stated: “The site was previously open to abuse from unknown and unauthorised parking, therefore due to the security risk the gate and fence had to be installed as an urgent matter.”