A DAIRY farm near Thornbury could become turned a major composting facility for garden waste if planners give the scheme the green light.

Pilning-based Green Waste Management Services want to use land at Morton Farm on the B4061 Old Gloucester Road to convert biodegradebale waste into organic fertiliser.

The site could handle up to 10,000 tonnes of local authority household green waste and cardboard a year - delivered to the farm at the rate of around four 10-tonne lorry loads a day.

After sorting, the waste would be shredded and laid out in "windrows" - up to ten feet high - where it would be left to compost for between two and three months.

Once the process is complete, the compost would be screened, taken to the fields and stockpiled ready for spreading at the appropriate time of the year. The amount of waste being composted at any one time would be restricted to 1000 cubic metres.

The man behind the application for change of use from dairy farm to waste site is former farming contractor Martin Gill who has bought Morton Farm and plans to run the composting operation alongside an arable farming business.

"It's hard to make a living out of farming these days without some kind diversification and composting is something which is being encouraged," he said. "It produces a good alternative to chemical fertilisers and cuts down the amount of waste going to landfill.

"Morton Farm would be a good site and the operation would cause minimal environmental impact. I'm sure there wil be objections but they wil be down to lack of knowledge and understanding.

"I shall be living in the farmhouse 50 or 60 metres away from the operation with my wife and children and we won't want to put up with smells and other nuisances."

Reports supporting the application say the site is well screened from the highway by the farmhouse itself, traditional farm barns and other modern buildings and cannot easily be seen from other properties in the vicinity.

There are currently only two sites in in the area taking green waste - at Old Sodbury and Almondsbury - and council doorstep collections have meant an increase in volume.

The report states: "A site in the north west of the authority's area will provide a good geographic coverage and thus assist with dealing with waste as close as possible to its source."

The application will come before South Gloucestershire planning chiefs at a future development control meeting.