Fosseway Garden Centre wins planning battle to extend range

At a meeting of Cotswold District Council's planning committee, members discussed an application by Fosseway Garden Centre to sell a wider range of oak furniture and pet products and to be allowed to sell Christmas goods all year round.

Sixty-seven letters of objection to the application were received by the council expressing concerns that businesses in the centre of the town would lose trade as a result.

Garden centre manager Tim Godwin said he had no intention of taking business away from the town centre "We are a garden centre and we have no intention of being anything else," he said.

"We are a local business trying to succeed and secure local jobs."

The application was granted by nine votes to one, with four abstentions, on the condition that Christmas goods are sold no earlier than October 1.