SEDGEMOOR District Council planners will decide next week whether or not to give the go-ahead to a major employment scheme on land opposite The Compass Tavern, in North Petherton.

Somerset County Council is behind the project, which it says forms the first phase of the Bridgwater Gateway development.

Outline planning permission was given in November 2012 for a mixed-use employment development on the site.

The district council’s development control committee will next Tuesday discuss plans for a three-storey “innovation centre” which, according to a report for the meeting, “aims to provide a variety of sizes of facilities for a number of small and medium-sized local enterprises involved in the Hinkley Point C supply chain”.