Vintage plane parts plan for showroom

A disused workshop in rural Herefordshire could be used to make parts for restored vintage warplanes.

Cunningham Aero has applied for planning permission to convert the former Slater Laverda Building at Collington Works north of Bromyard into an aeroplane parts workshop and also a single-bedroom home for the applicants, a couple.

The firm makes sheet metal parts for Spitfires, Hurricanes, Hawker Tempests, Lancasters and Gloster Gladiators, as well as for German Messerschmitt and Focke-Wulf planes, and American Mustangs, Tomahawks, Kittyhawks and others.

It is currently based at Bournemouth Airport in Dorset. The Collington site would allow the couple to be on-site 24 hours a day, “as security for the protection of these items would be hugely beneficial”, a statement with their application says.

The building most recently housed a motorcycle showroom and repair garage, since when planning permission has been given, though not implemented, to turn it into two homes.

The rest of the building, outside of the application, would continue to be used as workshop space. The plan would create three full-time-equivalent jobs.

Comments on the application, numbered 232230, can be made until August 24.