Stars living in an exclusive millionaires row are already smarting from a decision to allow a peat-processing plant to be built at Shoreham harbour.

But Sir Paul McCartney, Heather Mills, Fatboy Slim, Zoe Ball and Nick Berry can take heart from the fact planners are telling councillors to knock back a scheme, which could lead to even more lorries thundering past their homes in Western Esplanade, Hove.

Adur District Council's decision to allow the peat plant to be built a few hundred yards away will mean an extra 50 lorries use the route, which runs directly behind the whitewashed cottages, every day.

However, council planners have drawn the line at new plans to open a haulage depot even closer to their homes.

Officers are recommending refusal of an application to convert an existing recovery vehicle business in Basin Road South into a base for juggernauts of up to 38 tonnes.

A planning committee meeting on July 21 will be told the haulage depot would mean an extra 30 lorry movements a day along the road.

A report says objections have been received from nearby residents whose homes border Shoreham harbour.

They said: "The additional heavy goods traffic will exacerbate the already unbearable pollution, noise and dust caused on roads in the area."

Recommending refusal, officers said: "It is not a port-related use and, rather than securing wider benefits, would add to the environmental disadvantages suffered as a result of heavy goods vehicle traffic in the area."

The Argus revealed recently how the celebrity residents tried to block plans for the peat-

processing plant.

The company which manages their private access road wrote to the district council on their behalf objecting to the plan but the council later approved it.

However, the residents still have a glimmer of hope the decision could eventually be overturned.

Green Euro MP Dr Caroline Lucas wants the European Commission to investigate a possible breach of EU regulations following Adur's approval of the plans.

She is concerned about possible damage to the environment not only from lorry movements but by peat extraction.

She said the EU was so concerned about continued depletion of the natural resource it had offered special protection to peat boglands.

She said: "There are alternatives to peat in the horticultural industry which are renewable.

"To build a massive plant processing peat is both unsustainable and unnecessary."