OLD TOWN: Three undercroft parking spaces built for workers at empty offices can be turned into shops or used for other commercial purposes.

Nick Chawala of Chawala Acquisitions Ltd, based in Liden, got permission to be able to change the use of the car parking spaces that go with the Paxton House office block in Prospect Place to commercial spaces.

Originally, the three-storey building has five separate two-vehicle spaces, each protected by roller doors, on its ground floor to the western face – looking out at the council-owned car park.

OLD TOWN: Thames Water been given permission to knock down the sewage pumping station sited on a lane off Glenwood Close, near the allotments and the back of Nationwide’s car park.

The company said the building is unsafe and it will put up a much smaller kiosk for its switchgear for which, it says, it doesn’t need to ask permission: “The proposed kiosk is below the size of the pumping station and therefore constitutes permitted development and does not require the prior approval of the local planning authority.”

Highworth: The Sue Ryder shop at Market Place House, 43 High Street in the hilltop town has been given permission to replace its sign.

HANNINGTON: Two disused farm buildings in a village to the north of Swindon can be turned into three-bedroom houses.

Mr AM Kennedy has been given the green light for the conversions of an old farm office building and ‘mess rooms’, used by farmworkers in the past, into the houses.

He told planners: “The existing buildings easily lend themselves to conversion to residential use without significant change to the external envelope, building forms or site disposition.

“The proposed conversion creates two new dwellings that meet and exceed the nationally described spaces standards. Easy vehicular access to these buildings is already established with ample opportunities for parking.”

WROUGHTON: Berkeley Farm has just been given permission to install nearly 1,500 solar panels in fields off Swindon Road. It can also put up 461 solar panels on its buildings at Wood Farm.

EXTENSIONS: Applications have been submitted to put up extensions to houses, or outbuildings, or to convert garages and lofts into habitable rooms at 17 Taylor Crescent Kingsdown, 36 Sandringham Road, lawn, 19 Wiltshire Avenue Rodbourne Cheney and Ravenburgh, High Street Wanborough. The last was accompanied by a linked application for a dropped kerb and new driveway.

Such applications have been approved for: 29 Marlborough Road, and Parsonage House, Church Road Liddington.

A plan for a two-storey side extension to 17 Crieff Close Nythe has been withdrawn.

The plan put forward by Gordon Vashie to build a two-storey extension at the back of 8 Polesdon avenue, Badbury has been refused by planners.

Council officers thought the extension would be too big and imposing, with “an alien and discordant feature”.

Although no neighbours objected to the plan, planners said: “Due to its proximity to the neighbouring dwellings, the proposed extension would be overbearing in nature, creating an increased sense of enclosure and visual intrusion for both Nos 10 and 6 Polesdon Road.”