LETTER: Whalley sold down the river by planners

It was the day that over half of Ribble Valley’s planning committee sold the village of Whalley down the river for a handful of silver.

Apparently, despite all the promises to the opposite, the Core Strategy now forces them to reconsider their original refusal to the Lawsonsteads application and approve it. The reason they give is that in the Core Strategy Whalley has been identified as a “growth area”.

Now this is news to me and I’m sure to the majority of people in Whalley who have been following these things. We were identified as a service centre but a growth area?

According to the Core Strategy we were to get 375 houses over 20 years, not over 400 in two years, or is there a lot of small print I am missing in this great document?

I am so sad to see this happen to one of the jewels in Ribble Valley’s crown. I hope one day the people who facilitated this look on the destruction they have started and realise what they have done. I hope they hang their heads in shame.

Of course we aren’t alone. This is going on all over the country the destruction of heritage, natural habitat, farmland, historical towns and villages and I’m ashamed to say this has been set in motion by a government many of us thought were going to save us.

Well more fool us and more fool them, because the majority of the people they are now alienating were once their voters.

DAVID EARNSHAW,

Woodlands Drive,

Whalley