THE decision to allow waste to be dumped in a quarry overlooking a picturesque village has been condemned by a local councillor.

Lancashire County Council has decided that J and J Ashcroft can start tipping at the Little Quarries which backs on to homes on Smith Street, Whittle-le-Woods.

The plan has been given the go-ahead even though Chorley Borough Council has rejected it twice.

Originally an application was made for 1.3 million cubic metres of infill but the figure was reduced to 700,000 cubic metres.

Following the second rejection, the figure was reduced to 400,000, which, says Coun Eric Bell, was the original figure anyway.

"There is no way that they wanted to fill in that much space. It isn't a compromise.

"They said that the rock face needed shoring up, but there is a huge mound of soil for them to use, and anyway the rock face fell 10 years ago and ever since they have quarried there without any worries. This is just another excuse.

"There is another quarry over the road and as soon as all the stone has been used up the owners will want to do the same, filling it up with rubbish. That will take us up into the next century.

"One plan is to make the Chorley Old Road a one-way street for heavy vehicles. That would be disastrous and put people at risk, especially children who need to cross the road to reach the play area."

A spokesman for J and J Ashcroft said: "We are very pleased about this. It follows two years of long negotiations and planning. We have compromised to reach the solution.

"We plan to change it into a nature reserve and playing field when we have finished filling it in and most people seem happy with the plan, except for Coun Bell who has never approached us and is speaking from an uninformed position."

County Coun Derek Lockwood, Conservative planning spokesman, described the Labour group's decision at a meeting of the development control sub-committee, to allow a variation in planning conditions at Little Quarries as a "diabolical decision which is clearly not in the interests of the community."

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.