ANGRY residents accused Pendle Council of putting profits before people as they voiced their opposition to plans to build one of the biggest housing estates in Nelson.

Revised plans to develop vacant land between Halifax Road, Nelson, and Kings Causeway, Brierfield, have been submitted to Pendle Council by developers Fairclough Homes, in a bid to comply with planning guidelines for the area.

The amended scheme shows the same number of homes will be built, about 160, as in the original plan, but they will be spread across a wider area, including land previously earmarked for a new school.

More than 130 residents living in the 700 households that will be affected by the new estate met at Edge End High School, Nelson, to grill councillors, council officers and representatives of Fairclough Homes.

The two-and-a-half hour meeting ended with a number of concessions being won by residents. The council dropped a £3 charge for the development blueprint it has drawn up for the site and each household affected will get a free copy. Fairclough also agreed to submit full details of its proposed drainage and sewerage scheme for the site, after concerns were raised when surface water ran off the estate and flooded neighbouring homes.

The council was accused of putting the profits of the developer ahead of the interests of local people. But Coun Frank Clifford argued: "I can assure you that we, as elected members, are fighting for you, the residents, as hard as we can, but we need legitimate reasons to turn down this planning application."

Residents' spokesman Bruce Lamb, said afterwards: "We've got to keep pushing the argument that this estate is not automatically going to happen. We need to get the houses stopped and then we can work on getting this land taken out of the housing register." The site has been earmarked for housing since 1963.

Another public meeting will be held in November before the November 19 deadline for the end of the consultation on the development brief. Councillors will agree the blueprint in January and the plans will go to area committee in February.

Any scheme will have to meet the development blueprint to get planning permission.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.