SO Clitheroe planning consultant Janet Dixon, who claims to have personal knowledge of the proposed site for housing at Billington, says that fears of it having been a domestic tip are unfounded (LET, January 29).

If so, could she please explain the following:

Why was it known as "Grundy Top", and why have people who have lived in the village all their lives called it that?

There are people in the village who have gone digging there and found old Victorian bottles and other odd articles along with old rubbish tipped there from the mill that used to be in the village.

One person whose uncle who had a butcher's shop in the village said he was known to tip his waste from his shop there.

And an old man, who has been in touch with me, can remember playing on the tip before it was covered up, and also remembers the horses and carts taking rubbish and tipping it at the site.

Are all these people wrong?

Mrs Dixon says small amounts of ash have been found. But, surely, if I was drilling for water and found a small amount, would this then prove that there is no water there?

If I found ash in my garden, I should be digging to see how far and how deep it extended.

In one of the reports about the development of the site, one of the objections was: "It is the site of an old Victorian tip and has Victorian artifacts in it."

So it comes down to the question of who to believe.

I say to Mrs Dixon that sometimes it pays to listen to the people.

These days, they are more or less ignored where big business is concerned. But they are not fools.

MR J SYKES, Calder Avenue, Billington.

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