PLANS to create a golf course and tip up to a million tonnes of waste in the process have been turned down by councillors on environmental grounds.

Members of the planning and highways committee at Blackburn with Darwen Council were applauded by about 30 protesters when they unanimously moved to block the plan, submitted by Blackburn Golf Developments, of Hove, Sussex.

The firm had applied to build a golf course on 28 acres of land on both sides of Brokenstone Road, Feniscowles.

Part of the site had previously been the subject of a planning application by a firm called Griffin Bio, which got permission in 1998 to build a nine-hole golf course.

It then began to illegally dump about 600,000 tonnes of unchecked landfill on the site. Enforcement notices were issued against the landowner to remove the rubbish and these will now be followed through by the council again now that the planning application has been refused.

Blackburn Golf Developments wanted to drop another one million tonnes of inert landfill on to the site over a three to five year period, which would help shape the golf course and also pay for the development.

More than 250 letters of opposition were sent to the council and a public meeting held in Feniscowles in January focused on the damaging effect 75 lorries a day pounding through the village could have.

Only one councillor spoke on the proposal. Executive member for regeneration, Coun Andy Kay, moved refusal.

He said: "This has been an ongoing saga, but I do not think the proposals before us present us with a solution.

"We are looking at the destruction of the natural environment by importing hundreds of thousands of tonnes of what I will politely call infill.

"When the firm came to us, they gave us confidence they would be reasonable with their proposals for the site. But they have been anything but that with this plan."

A report to the committee had recommended refusal.

It said: "A report to the planning and highways committee states that 'the removal of the unauthorised material and the fact that a new pay and play golf course would be available for the benefit of residents and visitors to the borough are a positive benefit of the proposals.

"'It is considered they do not outweigh the harm that will result from the visual and physical character of the landscape'." should the scheme to import 700,000 cubic metres of waste material go ahead'."

The Council for the Protection of Rural England opposed to the plans and stated it would have a detrimental impact by virtue of noise, dust, smell and general activity.'

The Highways Agency said it had "no objection in principle" but added that it wanted "a five-metre high ball proof boundary fence between the proposed golf club and the M65."