A FARMER has defended his controversial plans to tip 250,000 tonnes of soil and stones into part of a deep ravine.

Stuart Douglas, of Moor Isles Farm, Reedley Hallows, on the boundary of Pendle and Burnley, dismissed suggestions that his latest scheme was comparable to a previous project to landfill the whole of Spurn Clough, a deep cutting in the hillside off Greenhead Lane, Reedley Hallows.

Mr Douglas admitted around 20 lorries a day would visit the site over two years to deposit materials into the clough to form a causeway across the ravine for his cattle and farm vehicles.

He argued that once the project was completed, tractors and trailers would not have to make repeated journeys along Greenhead Lane, bringing animals and silage from outlying fields to his farmhouse.

"At the moment if I want to move 30 cattle from my fields next to Greenhead Lane I have to move them two at a time in a trailer and make a four-mile round trip for a journey that is quarter-of-a-mile across Spurn Clough," he said.

"I've been renting those fields to other farmers until recently because they are not viable for me to work but now, with the state of farming as it is, no-one wants it." Mr Douglas said he would improve access off Greenhead Lane for the lorries and once the causeway was completed it would be grassed and planted with trees to make it blend into the landscape.

Pendleside county councillor Shelagh Derwent and Reedley Hallows Parish Council both oppose Mr Douglas's application to Lancashire County Council for permission to carry out the work because of fears over traffic safety and the impact on the environment.

Mr Douglas said comments comparing the latest scheme to an application in 1992 to use the whole clough as a landfill site were inaccurate.

"Then they were talking about ten millions tonnes of household and industrial waste filling in the whole Clough," he said.

"We're talking now about 250,000 tonnes of soil and stones to fill in a small part of the Clough. There's no comparison between the two."

The county council said an environmental impact assessment to gauge how the project would affect the area was not necessary because of the "limited scale" of the development.

The application is not likely to be discussed by the county council's development control sub-committee before June 22.

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