PORTLAND’S Osprey Leisure Centre has been told it can install a bank of solar panels without the need for planning permission.

The South Dorset Community Sports Trust, which runs the centre, had asked Dorset Council if it needed full consent for panels on a single storey flat roof above an office.

The application forms said the panels, 2.3 by 1.1metres, would be mounted at 20 degrees to the horizontal and would be behind the parapet of the building, so would be unlikely to be seen from the ground.

The Trust has been given a grant from the Government’s Swimming Poole Support Fund to help add to existing solar panels on the site, helping to reduce energy costs for the complex.

Dorset Council planning officers decided the proposal could go ahead under permitted development rules.