A HAULAGE firm has been given the green light to run its lorries from a yard in rural Worcestershire.

Robinsons of Worcester was asking for retrospective permission to store its 11 lorries and 15 trailers at its base at Home Farm at Besford, near Pershore.

Edward Robinson, the firm’s managing director, and his family have run an agricultural haulage firm carrying livestock and grain for more than a decade but were not asking to store any goods on site.

They say their lorries are only going to and from their site at the start and end of the working week in any case.

Len Miller, Ian Perks and Tom Newman have led objectors’ calls for the application to be thrown out, citing the “narrow country roads” as inappropriate for the 44-tonne lorries and saying the trucks are a hazard to other road users.

But the Robinsons said they were willing to agree a strict routing agreement, a lorry weight and a vehicle number limit to get their plans passed.

The plans had been deferred from May’s planning meeting until Thursday, June 23, allowing for a site visit.

Worcestershire County Council highways have, since the original meeting, asked for a £15,000 levy to pay for a proper entry and exit way to the farm for the lorries to the delight of objectors who felt their concerns about the roads were being ignored.

Councillor Paul Middlebrough, local ward member, told the planning committee said he had “long contended” any lorry business should make financial contributions to local rural roads which they “seriously damage” and said the county council needed to “sort out its processes in getting such contributions.” But he moved for a planning condition allowing the council to “audit” the lorry firm’s vehicle tracking data to check they were sticking to planning rules.

Coun Linda Robinson, committee chairman, said the application was “in the wrong place” and made country lanes off limits to cyclists, walkers and horse-riders.

However, councillors gave approval by nine votes to two, including a condition on the vehicle tracking data.

Mr Newman said afterwards: “We are disappointed that the application was approved, but alas we move on.”