THE approval of a new £6m training complex for Swindon Town has not gone down well in Highworth.

The town’s councillors unanimously agreed that the borough should refuse the application, which is linked to other plans for a new equestrian training centre.

They were worried about floodlighting, which was later taken out of the application but could be added as a separate submission later, and the waste buried under the site of the former Twelve Oaks Golf Club.

And they fear the plans might affect Highworth Town FC’s hopes to have its own 4G pitch built, though the teams may be allowed to use the STFC complex.

Coun Alan Bishop has a seat on both Highworth and Swindon councils and was the sole objector in the borough’s planning committee meeting at which the development was given the green light.

He later told the Adver: “I expected to be the only one opposed to it but it’s still disappointing.

"We happen to know where it’s going and the effect it will have, I don’t think some of the others knew where it was.

“A lot of toxic waste material has been buried there, lorry after lorry of it all tamped down with a JCB. It happened for years, so I dread to think what they’ll dig up.

“And I don’t like the thought of up to 90 cars in that car park coming out into all that traffic on the A361. I shall keep my eye on things and do all I can to limit the damage this will cause.

“It’s my duty to speak for the people I represent and take forward their concerns, that’s all you can do and then it’s out of your hands. Sometimes it’s successful but not this time.”

The complex will take up 12 of the former golf course’s 22 hectares and feature a purpose-built training centre, gymnasium and offices along with eight grass training pitches and a full-size all-weather pitch.

The existing clubhouse will become the players’ restaurant.

Town owner Lee Power’s racehorses will be trained in a new complex with 20 stables, an American barn with 30 horse boxes and hay store, an all-weather gallop, horse walker, lunge pit and paddocks, a car park and accommodation for stable hands.

Some of the barns on the 10-hectare site were built before the plans gained final approval.

A letter sent in to the Swindon planning committee by the owners of neighbouring livery business Crouch Farm said galloping horses in the centre would frighten other horses being walked on the path between the two businesses.

The plans were approved with conditions in place to address these concerns.