A FORMER Powys County Council depot could become a storage facility if a planning application gets the thumbs up.

John Rivers of JRivers Allworks has lodged a planning application with Powys council to place 10 shipping containers at their former depot at Mill Lane in Presteigne.

The scheme is to let the “iso containers” for storage purposes and would see them placed on “existing hardstanding” at the site.

The applicant proposes that access to the storage containers is available from 8am to 6.30pm from Monday to Friday and 9am to 1pm on weekends and bank holidays.

Presteigne and Norton Community Council discussed the proposal at their meeting in July and said: “It has no objections to the application providing the containers are sited on the existing concrete hardstanding and that this is not disturbed, and no groundworks are carried out given that the land is contaminated.”

“It was noted that the site is in a residential area and so opening hours should be properly considered.”

Concerns have been raised by environment body Natural Resources Wales (NRW) and Powys council’s senior contaminated land officer, David Jones that there could be potential contaminated land issues.

Mr Jones said: “It is noted that the proposed development is situated on land indicated as being a former landfill which represents a potential high risk source of contamination.”

“Based on the identified potential contaminated land, and an absence of appropriate supporting information, the application should be refused until such time as the applicant demonstrates that potentially significant liabilities have been assessed and understood. ”

In December 2021 it was revealed that the council had sold the depot. and  they had received the “best offer” for the property.

The actual figure of sale was kept confidential by the council but on the Powys website the guide price was for offers of £150,000 or more.