AN expanding West Somerset firm has finally been given planning permission for a new industrial unit – 14 months after it lodged plans with Somerset Council.

No explanation was given for the delay in the council taking a decision on the application by Brook Food Processing Equipment Ltd, even after the firm agreed to extend the deadline for determination to the end of May last year.

But it is now able to go ahead with construction of a steel portal frame storage building in a corner of its site on Williton’s Roughmoor industrial estate.

The company which employs more than 30 people, is the UK and Europe’s largest provider of new, refurbished, and used bakery equipment.

Planning agent James Goldring, of Inspired Partnership Ltd, said previous plans to put a two-storey office and storage building on the site had fallen through after the Covid pandemic.

Mr Goldring said the firm had been growing since it was formed in 2000 and had a good reputation in Europe and across the world.

Council economic development officer Gordon Dwyer supported the proposal, which he said appeared to be about modernisation of the premises and should help to sustain the business and employment in a rural area.

Williton parish councillors also put their weight behind the application, although they would have liked to have seen solar panels installed on the roof of the building.

Somerset Council planning officer Briony Waterman said the proposed building would be of a design and scale in keeping with the wider estate and other nearby units and the plans were considered to retain the character of the area.

A spokesperson for Brook Food, owned by managing director Steve Wells, said it offered more than 250 years of collective industry experience and was ‘passionate’ about finding the right food and bakery equipment solution for its customers.