A GROWING Stour valley firm is confident that it will be allowed to develop its base near Shipston for housing.

Objections from residents and from planning officers forced Underground Building Supplies Ltd (UGS) to withdraw its original planning application to turn its site at Willington into housing with some office space, but the company says it intends to try again with an amended scheme.

The firm says it needs to sell the site to allow it to move to larger premises, probably in Shipston.

Managing director Andrew Bygate, who founded the company five years ago, said this week he was confident an acceptable scheme could be agreed.

He said: "Due to our success we have outgrown our yard and office at Willington and desperately need to occupy larger premises if we are to continue expanding our business.

"We run a large fleet of heavy goods vehicles and in addition to our own fleet we can have as many as 15 articulated lorries delivering construction materials each day. We are very conscious of the problems that HGVs can pose to a small village like Willington and ideally we need to relocate to a town with a road network that can support this amount of traffic."

He said the proposed scheme had been designed to have a low impact on the village and would have made Willington quieter, while a third of the company's site would have been made into village green.

The original scheme was due to come before the Stour area planning committee last week, but was withdrawn.

Planners had recommended it for refusal, saying that Willington was not suitable for housing development, particularly as there had been no complaints about UGS in the past from other residents. Officers also criticised the design for seven detached and two semi-detached homes.

A large number of villagers also objected, but Mr Bygate said he was now planning to submit a revised application later in the autumn.

Since its formation five years ago, UGS, which supplies drainage materials, has grown rapidly and now has a turnover of more than £20 million a year and a workforce of more than 80.

It also has depots in Norwich, Nottingham and Mansfield and is soon to open another branch in Essex. Mr Bygate said he wanted to stay in the Shipston area to keep his existing Willington staff.