RETIRED car dealer Tom Fussell has spoken of his regret that Chirton garage, which he spent most of his adult life building up, will probably have to be demolished to make way for a housing development.

The garage closed in 2001 when Fussell Wadman car dealership amalgamated its businesses at Chirton and West Lavington and moved to a site on Hopton industrial estate facing London Road.

Since then the company has tried to sell the site for industrial and employment use without success.

So last week they submitted an outline planning application for five homes, three of them with garages. There will be two four-bedroom houses with double garages, one four-bedroom house with a single garage and a parking space and two two-bedroom low-cost homes with a parking space each.

They are arranged in a cul-de-sac estate to which access would be directly off the A342 Andover Road.

Mr Fussell said: "We have consulted closely with Kennet District Council and they insisted we market it as an employment site for a year. In fact, we have had it on the market for 18 months now but no one has shown any serious interest.

"It is a sign of the times, I'm afraid. Everywhere you go you see rural garages closing down. Like in all trades, businesses are merging. Filling stations are finding it increasingly difficult to compete on price with supermarkets.

"It is the end of an era for Fussell Wadman but the business has moved on and expanded. But I will experience a pang of regret when the garage I have spent my life building up is finally demolished.

"I shall probably make sure I am out of the country when that happens."

People in the village have all but resigned themselves to the fact that the site will no longer offer employment opportunities to local people.

A planning brief by agents RPS Consultants accompanying the application claims that, when the garage was still located at Chirton, only one employee came from the village.

Local resident David Baker said: "As long as it is tastefully done I'm sure there will be no objections from the village. We are, of course, concerned about the loss of an employment site, but it is not really viable. We must recognise the realities of life.

"The village is more concerned about keeping our pub open. We managed to save it when Wadworth's wanted to close it down and sell it as a house. Having more people moving into that end of the village will help its viability."