A PRINCIPAL council engineer has made an objection to the latest plans in the £40m expansion of Grove Business Park.

Responding to the park's latest planning application, which includes the drainage plan for upcoming construction works, Geoffrey Arnold said he was 'struggling to find sufficient information' on how that system would fit into the drainage for the rest of the park.

The county council engineer recommended that planning officers be confident about drainage plan for extreme storms, discharge rates and the layout of pipes before they signed off the application.

The park's project director Richard Lyall said: "The surface water drainage issue represents the work space area of the park which is only a small entity of the entire park.

"This is an issue for the engineer to discuss with the drainage specialists but it's not a major bump in the road for the ongoing development."

It is, however, the latest in a series of small bumps in the road for the park's new owner David Hill, who bought the 32-acre site with a new company Grove Business Park Ltd for an estimated £10m in 2015.

He and his team riled some long-term tenants last year by raising some 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' in order to turn its fortunes around.

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

A planning officer at Vale of White Horse District Council then said plans to fell 100 trees as part of the expansion were 'unacceptable'.

The latest planning application includes plans to remove just a quarter of that number.

One park tenant also threw a spanner in the works last year by making a direct appeal to the Government asking whether the owners should not have carried out an Environmental Impact Assessment before submitting a planning application to build 200,000sq ft of new office space.

The Secretary of State said the company did indeed need to address the issue, and the park submitted a formal EIA application.

In the end the district council decided the EIA was not needed, and the park won planning permission for its full expansion in December.

The company has already upgraded 10,000sq ft of offices in the central Quad area and work refurbishing the 'serviced office facility' Boston House is nearing completion.

Mr Lyall added: "We are witnessing a transformation in progress and businesses are responding in increasing numbers.

"Demand for space is growing as we create a park that offers a great central location... along with state-of-the-art facilities for businesses ranging from start-ups to major operators."

Vale council leader Matt Barber has said the park plans are 'exciting', adding: "It should be very good for Grove and the surrounding area and offer new jobs."