A COUNCIL will serve an enforcement notice on engineering firm Rowecord, asking it to stop manufacturing at its site on Commercial Street, Pontymister.

Caerphilly council's planning committee gave the go-ahead for the action at its meeting on Wednesday, following a two-year dispute with the company, whose head office is on Usk Way, Newport and employs 1,000 people.

After complaints about late-night noise and dust from residents around Pontymister's Newport Road and Fields Road, the council decided to take action, stating that the company does not have the correct licence for manufacturing at the site.

The Pontymister building was put up in the 1960s by John Cashmore Ltd for the storage and dispatch of steel sections and sheets.

It has since been used by a variety of companies, including British Steel and Corus. Rowecord bought it in 2008 and started manufacturing large steel structures in component form there.

These are then assembled on development sites, such as that of the London Olympics and other major civil engineering projects.

A report by Caerphilly council said the site was authorised for use simply as a warehouse and planning permission would be needed for a change of use, meaning the current use is unauthorised and breaches planning control.

Rowecord responded to the council by saying it had not breached any planning control and steel fabrication had taken place there for "many years".

A supporting letter from Corus stated that Corus, as well as British Steel and other companies had used the site for steel fabrication between 1966 and 2005.

Local authority officials told the company it could apply for a lawful development certificate if the site had been used for steel fabrication for 10 years - this would make it immune from enforcement. However, it has not done so.

A spokesman for Caerphilly council said the planning committee authorised the serving of an enforcement notcice.

A spokesman for Rowecord said the firm is not commenting at this stage.