NINE business units will be created in Blandford Forum after the demolition of the former Pines filling station.

Pines Property Dorset Ltd of Salisbury Road, Blandford has been given consent by Dorset Council for the changes to the Oakwood Taxis site in Shaftesbury Lane.

The site is currently rented to a local builder to store materials and had been used by the taxi company, a van rental business and as a scrap yard.

The former garage and workshop is made of concrete blocks under a corrugated asbestos roof with a separate small building which used to be the filling station kiosk.

The application will created five new business units along the front of the site with four to the rear after the demolition of the existing buildings, which have fallen into disrepair. Planning officers in their report welcomed their modern design.

Between them the new units will offer almost 1,000 square metres of internal floorspace, compared to the 186 square metres available in the existing buildings.

A total of 29 car parking spaces and two lorry parking spaces will be provided by the development, seven additional car spaces compared to the existing site layout, together with an area for cycle parking.

Blandford town council welcomed the development saying it would improve the area, which already has businesses uses adjacent to it within the Blandford Heights industrial estate development.

Conditions imposed with the planning consent include having proposals on how to deal with any contamination which may be found on the site from its previous uses.