Planning news in and around Frome this week and applications to Mendip include:

Number 33 Innox Hill in Frome has put in a planning application for the Demolition of existing front detached outbuilding and erection new detached outbuilding to provide ancillary accommodation to the main house. 

An application is in for Approval of details reserved by condition 9(Construction Management Plan) on planning consent 2022/0218/VRC.  for 6 Frome Road in Rode.

Approval of details reserved by conditions 3 (materials) and condition 4 (surface water drainage) on planning consent 2022/0840/FUL.  of the application for 27 Summer Hill in Frome.

Applications decided this week include:

The Crab Apple tree at Black Swan Arts in Frome, has been approved to be cut down.

An application to cut back the Elder by half along Top Lane in Mells has been approved.

An application for the Modification/Discharge S106 Agreement Application No: 2022/1490/S106 for the Selwood Printing Works development on Caxton Road in Frome, has been approved. The agreement is said to : " allow for the affordable housing units in this case 6 x Starter Homes to be secured in perpetuity."

And an application by the church on Christ Church Street West in Frome, to remove the existing roof coverings over the North Porch and the Servers' Vestry and replace them with new coverings and insulation, has been approved.

While from the Local Democracy reporter:

A farm on the edge of a Somerset beauty spot will become a major power storage facility after new plans were approved by district councillors.

Conrad Energy (Developments) II Ltd. applied to create a battery energy storage facility at King's Farm on Haddon Lane in the hamlet of Shearston, roughly halfway between Bridgwater and Taunton.

The company – which won approval last year to deliver new employment units near the Crewkerne Key Site – intends to store excess power from the UK power network and sell it back to the National Grid at peak times.

Sedgemoor District Council's development committee approved the plans when it met in Bridgwater on Tuesday morning (August 23) – despite concerns that it would damage the character of the nearby landscape.

The new facility will be constructed to the west of the existing farm buildings, which lie less than a mile from the Quantock Hills area of outstanding natural beauty (AONB).

A total of 45 shipping containers will be sited near the farm, connected via underground cables to an electricity pylon on the opposite side of Haddon Lane.

Of these 45 containers, 30 will contain batteries to store the excess energy from the grid, while 15 will contain inverters to ensure the electricity is imported and exported at the correct voltages.

Fletcher Robinson, a trustee of the Somerset CPRE (formerly the Council for the Protection of Rural England) said the AONB's objections to the development had been "wrongly dismissed" and warned the development could damage the character of this peaceful rural backwater.

He said: "The harm is not just to the views. The main harm is to the character to the setting of the Quantock Hills.

"This proposal will cause significant harm to the immediate area of the protected landscape."

A number of other battery energy storage facilities are already in operation in Somerset – including the Fideoak site west of Taunton (owned by South Somerset District Council) and a recently-approved facility on part of the former Wansborough paper mill site in Watchet.

After around an hour's debate, the committee voted to approve the plans by a margin of eight votes to three.