Specialist geo-drilling equipment to be stored in barns once used for livestock

Bainbridge Brothers Ltd applied for planning permission to change the use of a shed and workshop at East Gate Farm, Long Newton to store their equipment for a geo-drilling operation. The groundworks investigation firm says it focuses on the energy sector, working in the “most remote, inhospitable parts of the UK” to serve electricity and windfarms.

The civil engineering firm proposed to use two sheds surrounded by fields on Long Newton Lane to store and repair its machinery, while its “active business would take place off-site”. The steel-framed buildings were previously used to keep livestock and were now largely unused except as an agricultural workshop.

“There are no livestock kept at the farm making the buildings practically redundant,” says a planning statement from agent Prism Planning. It says the barn to be used as a workshop could hold large tractors and large items of plant and machinery, and was already used as a farm vehicle repair workshop.

“It is already an existing agricultural workshop, already set up to be used for the repair and maintenance of vehicles similar to those used in the geo-environmental business. No physical alterations are proposed or required.”

The applicant said the proposals would bring economic, social and environmental benefits including jobs, bringing a redundant building back into productive use and improving its appearance with new cladding and replacing broken, unsightly panels.

“This application seeks consent to use the barns the subject of this application to accommodate a variety of specialist plant and equipment used in the applicant’s geo-environmental drilling business. The applicant operates throughout the UK and specialises in gaining access to the most remote, inhospitable parts of the UK to serve the electricity and windfarm sectors.

“They use specially adapted tracked vehicles with wide and longer tracks to allow access across poor ground conditions which might include peat bogs, brash, wooded areas and up or down steep slopes to allow boreholes to be undertaken in any location. The company therefore have accumulated a variety of specialist vehicles and borehole test rigs which can be deployed from their base of operations to wherever they are required.

“The majority of their needs therefore revolve around the storage of the tracked plant, trailers and drill rigs.

“This planning application seeks permission for the change of use of a redundant agricultural building to provide a predominantly storage use related to an established and specialist geo-environmental investigation company. The statement sets out the isolated location of the site with no near neighbours, the absence of technical harm arising from highway considerations, ecological considerations or flood risk.”

No objections were received and the council’s planning officers approved the proposal with conditions, saying it would involve “minimal external alterations”, would be “sympathetic to the agricultural building and countryside setting”, and would not harm the area’s character or landscape.