A COUNCILLOR has called for planners to use common sense after they refused an application to rebuild a wall knocked down 24 years ago when two flats were converted into one.

The elderly couple who live there knocked down the wall, but kept a front and back door for each property and still receive separate gas and electricity bills.

Councillors argued the application should be granted on humanitarian grounds, despite a current policy to refuse applications which create new dwellings.

But the application was rejected on the casting vote of Hyndburn Council planning committee chairman, Coun Doug Hayes.

Pensioner Lorna King, 64, and her husband Russell, 65, want to sell the two shops and flats above them to Whalley builder Carl Bowker so they can retire after suffering ill health.

Mrs King, of Park Road, Great Harwood, has recently been in hospital with pneumonia and her husband has had two strokes.

Mr Bowker submitted the application, but it was refused because of the council's policy of rejecting new housing applications as there is a backlog of approved applications, and an over-supply of houses in the borough.

There are currently active permissions for 640 houses to be built in Hyndburn, and the council has been advised through the Joint Lancashire Structure Plan to reduce its annual build from 200 to 110.

Mrs King told the committee the couple had bought the two shops and knocked down a wall when they started the business.

"Both properties have their own front and back doors and the electricity supply has separate consumer boxes.

"When we knocked down the wall we didn't get planning permission so, technically, they should still be two properties. We had every intention of retiring into the two flats and renting the shops, but my husband had two strokes.

"We are both becoming ill with having to remain. We need to move, but every turn we make seems to be into a brick wall. We are at a loss now. We have nobody else to take this property off our hands. We really are getting desperate."

Mr Bowker said: "I am disappointed, but I feel sorry for the Kings. They have to get out of there because of their illnesses. They're like prisoners really."

Coun David Myles said he would vote against the officers' recommendation to refuse the application because he didn't believe in the policy. "I don't believe it's workable and I don't like a policy that whitewashes all these applications in the same manner. I think we have to have some common sense brought into this," he added.

Coun Edith Dunstan said: "This should be dealt with in a humane way."

But Coun Hayes said the policy should be adhered to until the end of consultation on the housing freeze.