VILLAGERS are being warned they could find heavy lorries and mobile homes trundling through their streets, depending on what future use a farm site is put to.

A consultant acting for R G Stephens and Sons, which owns Grange Farm, Little Comberton, is urging village residents to attend a public meeting next Tuesday (August 6) to hear the company's proposals for the site.

Grange Farm was the subject of a planning inquiry after the owners announced plans to relocate the farm business outside the village.

They also hoped to redevelop the existing farm site as a retirement home for people on relatively high incomes.

Earlier this year, Wychavon District Council warned R G Stephens and Sons it would not receive the authority's support for the retirement home scheme.

The council's preferred options were either commercial use - such as agricultural storage - or leisure, which could combine mobile caravans and holiday lets in the brick buildings and barns.

Wychavon also advised the company to consult villagers about what it had in mind for the farm site.

Established uses listed by the council for Grange Farm ranged from vehicle repairs to clay pigeon shooting and carpentry and building works to light engineering.

The planning inquiry inspector commented that "the future use of a potentially redundant site of the size and nature of Grange Farm, if it is vacated, should be properly pursued through the recently commenced review of the council's local plan".

James Powell, consultant to the company, said: "R G Stephens and Sons are anxious to develop the site, having due regard to the impact on the existing village, both now and in the future, but any new scheme must be practical and financially viable.

"Mobile caravans going along village streets or industrial development, with heavy lorries bringing storage material to the existing buildings, would have a serious environmental impact on the residents of Little Comberton and, indeed, the surrounding villages."

He added: "The meeting is being held to allow the villagers the opportunity to hear the company's proposals and consider the future uses of the site.

"The Stephens family are anxious to achieve a development that is acceptable to the village."

The meeting takes place in Little Comberton Village Hall at 7.30pm next Tuesday.