A RETIRED woman is celebrating victory against council planners which could see her move into a new home by Christmas.

And pensioner Lorna King said: "If it wasn't for the Lancashire Evening Telegraph, we wouldn't have won."

Hyndburn Council has now pledged to reconsider the application to turn the first-floor flat and catering firm - KBS Catering - into two houses at no further cost.

Pensioner Lorna, 64, and her husband Russel, 65, of Park Road, Great Harwood, have battled for nearly six months, through two applications and worsening health to sell their property.

They needed to move into a ground-floor property because Russel could not get up or down the stairs and Lorna was finding it increasingly difficult.

The council first blocked plans to turn the building into a family-run Chinese takeaway in July and then again in September when Whalley builder Carl Bowker applied to turn it back into two homes.

But it recently backtracked after it created a new exception to its strict freeze on new housing to allow for buildings to revert back into their original number of homes.

The council banned the construction of new homes after the government told it to slash its annual house build from 200 to 110 for the next five years. It had a backlog of 908 permissions, well in excess of the five-year projection, it had granted and which it needed to reduce.

Lorna said: "This is fantastic news. The last six months have been hell, we have been through so much.

"But the Telegraph has been fantastic and if it wasn't it highlighting our case we wouldn't have won. Now we can move out after Christmas."