Neighbours’ ‘nightmare’ claims fail to stop industrial site extension

Members of Caerphilly County Borough Council’s planning committee heard nearby residents were fed up with “constant issues” at the development site in St Davids Industrial Estate, Pengam.

“We’ve been complaining about this development since this work started in 2023, despite no planning consent being granted,” neighbour Mark Oliver said. “It’s been absolutely horrendous and a nightmare.”

Senior planning officer Carwyn Powell told the committee that granting retrospective permission for the unit was the best chance of regulating the activity there.

He said attaching strict conditions to the approval would secure a “strict reduction” in operating hours at the site.

Mr Oliver claimed the unit had been operating “24/7 for a good few years”.

In that time, he alleged there had been “constant issues with loud noise and fires.. seven days a week”.

“The noise can be clearly heard from inside our properties,” he said. “It’s ten times worse when trying to spend some time in the garden.”

The neighbour also alleged fires at the site produced “dense smoke” and “smells of burning plastic – they smell very toxic and they’re extremely unpleasant”.

He said nearby residents felt “largely ignored” by decision-makers.

Cefn Fforest and Pengam ward councillor Marina Chacon-Dawson also told the committee she opposed the retrospective application for a unit “built without permission”.

She said residents had raised “sustained concerns regarding noise, fires, nuisance and uncontrolled activity on the site”.

A planning officers’ report “dismisses these [concerns as being] outside of planning control”, she told the committee.

Mr Powell accepted the new unit was bigger than the original development and had been built before planning permission was granted.

But he said the council “has to be mindful of the potential for compensation for the applicant if we stopped works which are considered to be acceptable in the long run”.

He said “noisy activities… were permissible on that parcel of land prior to this development”. “In planning terms it is considered to be acceptable,” Mr Powell told the committee. “As planners, and as members of the planning committee, that’s what we have to consider.”

Committee member Cllr Nigel Dix asked whether the conditions proposed by officers would “alleviate” the neighbours’ concerns.

Mr Powell said the series of conditions “severely restricts the hours of operation on site”.

On the neighbours’ complaints about activities at the site, environmental health officer Ceri Davis added her department “could and will pick up those allegations outside of this planning committee”.

In a supporting statement, Boardman Planning Ltd, the agents for applicant M Howells, said the proposal was to “replace an existing commercial unit on an existing industrial estate”, and argued the unit was “not located in close proximity to any nearby residential properties”.

Members voted in favour of approving the application.