A STORAGE company is applying to build a warehouse just down the road from where its seven previous applications have been rejected.

The Big Yellow storage company appealed against a decision by Lewisham Council to refuse its seventh application to build a warehouse in Baring Road, Lee.

But the appeal was rejected on December 21 following a public inquiry on October 30.

Now the company plans to build a warehouse at the nearby Cliftons roundabout in Westhorne Avenue, Eltham.

It originally put in a planning application for the site of the former World of Leather store to Greenwich Council on August 14 last year, but withdrew it in November while consultations were still ongoing.

Now the company says it is preparing another application for the site.

Carol West, 61, from neighbouring Ryelands Crescent, Eltham, is organising an action group to voice residents' concerns.

She said: "This is primarily a residential area and we don't like the thought of having a great big yellow building here, however sympathetic they say construction will be.

"It would be built on an enormously busy roundabout and this would bring lots of problems with all the big vehicles using the site."

She added: "It is the sort of building which should be on an industrial estate somewhere.

"If the residents of Baring Road don't want this, why would we, half-a-mile down the road, want this on our doorstep?"

The self-storage company submitted an application on July 21 last year to build a warehouse unit, a four-storey block of 26 flats and a three-storey block of six flats on the Lee site.

This was rejected by Lewisham Council on April 12.

In her report following the appeal, planning inspector Mary Trevors said the development would be out of character with the area and living conditions in the proposed flats would be of an unacceptably low standard.

Anne-Marie Goodman, a member of St Mildred's Residents' Group, which has led Lee residents' protests against the plan, said: "This vindicates the efforts all of us who live around here have been making for the past five years.

"A residential area is not the place for one of these huge storage warehouses.

"Let's hope Big Yellow finally gets the message and leaves us alone."

Campaigner Dr John Fox, of Baring Road, said: "I think the decision was right and the only one she could have arrived at.

"She underlined all the arguments put forward by the residents and council over the past five or six years.

"Unfortunately we don't know what it will do now because it is so determined and won't take no for an answer."

A spokesman for Big Yellow said: "Big Yellow is disappointed with the decision the inspector has reached.

"We will review our options in the new year."