New homes plan should be thrown out

It is unlikely I am alone in Barnoldswick in rejecting the configuration of a road access in a planning application by Stirling Investment Properties. I am among those sent consultation letters by Pendle planning department to comment on an outline application to build 29 properties on land off Long Ing Lane.

Access to the properties would involve demolishing a section of a stone wall that forms the barrier between open land and Long Ing Lane.

The new opening would be yards away from the vehicle entrance to the Silentnight car park on the other side of the road. A little farther away, again on the opposite side of the road, is Valley Road, along which heavy lorries bound for Silentnight travel before turning into Long Ing Lane.

Each of the 29 properties using the new access has parking space for two vehicles, potentially increasing the traffic in Long Ing Lane to congestive proportions.

Not only is there the likelihood of traffic congestion and increased risk of accidents but also there seems to be no provision for protecting pedestrians - shoppers, schoolchildren and Silentnight workers - from increased risk. This risk will be exacerbated if the separate planning application to build dozens more homes off Valley Road gets the go-ahead.

An additional consideration, with so many extra properties being built off Long Ing, is: how many will rely on being connected to the existing drainage system and how will any new drainage systems be incorporated into the present one?

There are already, at this early stage, so many risks and imponderables that Pendle should do the right thing and throw the plan out.

William Robertson

Moss Side, Barnoldswick