PLANS to keep an incubation facility for game bird eggs in a North-East village have met with opposition from residents and conservationists.

Darlington Borough Council has received an application for planning permission to keep an incubation house and portable cooler to hold hatched birds at a game bird rearing operation at Sadberge.

The site, at land next to Cobby Castle Lane, Sadberge, near Darlington, has already been the subject of planning permission in the past.

In 1998, retrospective planning permission was granted for six brooder sheds and a night shelter with a pen for raising game birds.

But in April this year, retrospective permission was refused for an incubation house and caravan for housing equipment.

Although officers have recommended the plans for approval, they have encountered opposition from some local people and the Council for the Protection of Rural England.

The CPRE says the development would be visually obtrusive.

Other objections include that the development would restrict views of open countryside, that it is becoming a creeping development and that the proposed structures are too large.

The final objection states that the caravan, for which planning permission was refused in April, was still on the land.

Bishopton Parish Council has raised no objections to the plans, as long as the caravan is moved.

The council said the applicant has told it the caravan would be removed this month.

Members of the planning applications committee will consider the plans at a meeting on Thursday.