PLANS by the National Trust to build a wood store for biomass at Stourhead House have been given the goahead in the midst of an outcry from residents living nearby.

Approval for the building on an old airfield in Bells Lane, Stourton, means woodchipping will take place there four times a year.

Residents in Bells Lane say they were not consulted on the plans and fear the "unacceptable" machinery noise as well as increased traffic and dust.

Speaking at a Southern Area Planning Committee meeting on Tuesday, Graham Waddell from the National Trust said: "The trust has looked at a number of sites on the Stourhead Estate over the last four to five years.

"This is the most logical from an operational and sustainable point of view."

He added: "We have recognised that over time more could perhaps have been done in terms of consultations with local residents, we have tried to engage in recent times with representatives of the local community and we have tried to respond to issues raised through the planning process."

The wood which will come from the Stourhead estate is needed to fuel the biomass boiler heating system installed at Stourhead House.

An estimated eight to ten lorry loads of timber is expected per year with the round wood "stacked neatly and blown directly into the proposed chip store".

The National Trust said a contract chipper will be brought onto the site for the four operational days every year and when finished the chipper and all machinery would be taken away.

Councillors voted to approve the building by ten to one.

Councillor Chris Devine said: "Those of us born and brought up in the countryside know the countryside is not a Thornton's chocolate box lid and that it is full of noise and agricultural buildings and in this one, it seems to me the National Trust has bent over backwards to make sure that it doesn't really stand out in the landscape.

"When all the screening and the extra hedge has grown up, it will be invisible virtually."

The timber-clad building will be 20 metres in width, six metres in depth and have a total height of just over five metres.