A ‘monstrosity’ of a barn on greenfield land in Warfield is to become a commercial garage – despite some neighbours’ objections.

Bracknell Forest councillors voted to allow the change to go ahead, against the recommendations of the council’s own planning officers.

Nick Kerner asked for permission to turn the site into a vehicle repair garage – just months after buying the land and erecting the barn. He needed the council’s approval as the land had only been authorised for agricultural use.

Several nearby residents wrote to the council to oppose the plans, fearing that it would bring more noise and heavy traffic – with one branding the barn a “monstrosity.”

But others – including farmers from the surrounding area – wrote in to back Mr Kerner. They said his business Nick Kerner 4 Wheel Drive, which specialises in repairing Land Rovers, 4X4s, horseboxes and trailers, was valuable to the area.

Planning officers called on councillors to reject the plan at a meeting on Thursday, 15 June. They said the change would “introduce an intensive commercial use of the site,” bringing an increase in the volume and type of traffic, damaging the “openness of the greenbelt.”

But councillor Patrick Smith pointed out that it was already visited by large agricultural vehicles, and used by visitors to the neighbouring Oaktree garden centre.

Councillor Smith proposed that the committee approve the change as long as it stuck to the plans submitted to the council.

READ MORE: Anger at plans to turn ‘monstrosity’ barn in Warfield into garage

He said: “There are no substantial modifications to the existing building so I can’t really see how the proposed development has a spatial impact.

“I’m not convinced that there’s particularly a visual impact. I recognise that the nature of the vehicles parked outside would be different to a degree to what we have now.”

But Councillor Gareth Barnard warned that approving the change could allow other businesses to use the site in the future, with the council having little say.

He said: “We have very little say now what goes forward on that site beyond the opening hours and conditions that are in place there.

“This will be a vehicle repair business that will ebb and flow with the needs of that type of business. It will be a business that will have a very high level of activity all year round.

“We’re quite happy for a standard business to take place there over which we will have very little controls. It will be an established use on the site. It won’t just stay in the gift of the current user – it could be passed on.”

Four councillors voted to allow the change, and three voted against.