RESIDENTS of Guide are bombarding the government with protest letters in a last ditch bid to stop a large commercial development on their doorsteps.

Guide Residents' Campaign has printed hundreds of letters for people in the area to sign and post to government planning chiefs to halt the development, which could see as many as 1,000 jobs created.

A public inquiry was held in July into the scheme for a car showroom, petrol station, a sports/health centre, tennis courts, hotel, pub and offices for the site near Fishmoor Reservoir off Haslingden Road.

Since then a government inspector has recommend to Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott that the petrol station and car showroom part of the development should not go ahead and that the planned layout of the scheme should be radically altered to keep it as far away as possible from residents.

The saga began in the summer of 1998 when residents opposed the development and Blackburn with Darwen Council's planning committee to recommended it should go ahead.

Ever since the scheme has been in limbo - first it took several months to decide whether there should be a public inquiry and then the inspector's decision took six months to be formulated.

Guide residents' spokesman Pat Kennedy said: "All we can do is keep battling away and hope we can get this stopped altogether.

"We have already shown what is possible by working together as a village to oppose this because it was by no means certain that we would even get a public inquiry. We need to keep the pressure up and who knows what will happen."

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