A TENANT at Grove Business Park has held up the owners' expansion plans by asking the Government to intervene.

An anonymous business on the site appealed to the Government asking whether the site owners should not have carried out an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) before trying to get planning permission to build 200,000sq ft of new office space.

The Secretary of State has now said they do so the owners have withdrawn their planning application and instead submitted a formal request asking whether it does indeed need to carry out the EIA - which would outline the effects on the surrounding area.

The planning application had been due to go to Vale of White Horse District Council's planning committee last month for a decision, but was 'withdrawn' just two days before without explanation.

Now the Vale has revealed it decided to postpone the decision because of the appeal to Government.

Council spokesman Gavin Walton explained: "Just before the committee meeting on October 19 we received confirmation that a tenant at the business park intended to apply to the Secretary of State for direction on the need for an Environmental Impact Assessment.

"We therefore judged that we should wait for a decision on this matter before progressing the application any further."

The environmental concern came after a forestry officer at the Vale said plans to fell 100 trees as part of the expansion were 'unacceptable'.

This incident is also the latest friction between the business park's new owners and their tenants.

Businessman David Hill, who lives in France, bought the 32-acre park with a new company Grove Business Park Ltd for an estimated £10m last year.

However he and his team quickly riled some long-term tenants by raising maintenance charges and changing the site's image and ethos from the largely industrial 'technology park' it had been for 15 years to a more office-based 'business park'.

Other tenants have said the improvement plans are 'fantastic' and the park already looks smarter.

Mr Hill and his team said they are hoping to transform the park, where about 600 people currently work, into an 'incubation hub' which will grow small, local start-ups into big-hitting businesses.

To achieve that, they submitted a planning application to double the amount of commercial space on site to more than 400,000sq ft.

A planning officer at the Vale had recommended the planning committee to approve the application, but the council's forestry officer warned that the loss of mature and protected trees was 'significant' and the justification for removing some of the most important 'often scant'.

Now, the business park owners have submitted a formal request to the Vale asking whether or not they do need to carry out the EIA requested by their tenant.

That application can be seen online at whitehorsedc.gov.uk using reference number P16/V2789/SCR and the Vale has said it will give the park an answer by November 23.

The business park did not respond to repeated requests for comment.