Councillors have again objected to plans for a business park at a controversial former Traveller site - but say they do want it to be developed.

The former HGV driver training centre near South Brent was used as a large and unauthorised Traveller camp for some six years, before the last family moved out in 2013.

Now new owners M Spray and Sons, a plant hire and firewood company from Totnes that bought the site after the Travellers moved on, are keen to turn it into a business park with a number of industrial and office units for rent.

The firm put in an application earlier this year for the site, off the B3372 immediately adjacent to the Marley Head junction, on the South Brent side of the A38. That application, for 19 units and a central building was withdrawn, but a new proposal quickly followed.

Last week South Brent parish councillors considering the plans voted to send their objections to planning authority Dartmoor National Park. The council had also objected to the previous application.

The new application includes fewer units, down to 15, with more landscaping and buildings relocated to address previous concerns of DNP and Highways England. The latter are asking for measures to prevent vehicle headlights shining onto the neighbouring A38.

This time around, Brent councillors repeated they welcomed some kind of scheme for the land. However, the council’s response continued, the proposal was an overdevelopment of the site, there were no HGV turning facilities and they had concerns about the proposed shared waste store.

New councillor Paul Fennessy said no one would take responsibility for a communal waste store, which could become "a dumping ground full of rats".

Planning committee chairman Cllr Sue Gaskin said she was "amazed" it was acceptable to put all the toilets in one building, but apparently it was, if there were the right number for the people on site.

Cllr Glyn Richards said if permission was granted, a condition should be included restricting the buildings to commercial use in perpetuity, to avoid them being turned into homes at a later date. This was agreed by councillors.

And Cllr Greg Wall raised the possibility that if the applicants were refused permission for what they wanted to do with the site, it could become a Traveller camp once again.

The area, which once housed Marley Head filling station, has a long and chequered planning history.

Before permission was granted for its use as an HGV training centre in 1995 an application was submitted for a substantial ’motorist facility’ including a petrol station, restaurant and car parking. This was refused by South Hams District Council in 1990.

During its use as an unauthorised encampment three applications were submitted to formalise the site, and provide permanent and transit pitches for Gypsies and Travellers. All were refused.