A LEADING councillor today pledged that action would be taken to restore a beauty spot wrecked when thousands of tonnes of landfill was dumped on it.

Andy Kay, in charge of regeneration at Blackburn with Darwen Council, said the authority's officers had been instructed to use every means necessary to get the site, in Brokenstones Road, Fensicowles, restored.

Planning permission was first granted in 1993 for the site to be turned into an 18-hole golf course. In 1998, that planning permission was renewed and a firm, Griffin Bio, began dumping waste on the site, claiming it was to create the right topography for a golf course.

The golf course never happened - and earlier this month, the Local Government Ombudsman ordered the council to pay £5,000 to a resident near to the site.

The resident had claimed loss of amenity because the council did not do enough to ensure that a golf course would be created on the site once the dumping had been completed.

The council has served enforcement notices on the owner of the land, but they were held in abeyance after a fresh planning application was received for the site last year.

That was turned down earlier this year on the grounds that it would be detrimental to the countryside, and Coun Andy Kay said: "Officers have now been instructed to do all they can to get the site cleared.

"What has happened is not acceptable and we want to get it sorted. All angles are being looked at to get it resolved once and for all."

The council would have the power to force the landowner, previously identified in a council report as Peter Shorrock, the former Blackburn Lions president, to take action.

Alternatively, it could do the work and then bill the landowner.

Griffin Bio is no longer in existence, so responsibility for the site falls back on to the landowner.