A DEVELOPER'S hopes of boosting tourism in Rossendale by creating a holiday park look set to end in disappointment after planners earmarked the application for refusal.

The plan to build 20 holiday lodges, an office with employee accom-modation and car parking at Scar End Farm, Weir Lane, Weir, is set to be turned down because it goes against guidance set out by government planning policy.

Earlier this year permission was granted to build a new roadway from Burnley Road as the principal access to the farm and this has recently been completed and brought into use.

If councillors were to go against the officers' recommendation and pass the application in principal, planning officers would be left to work out the detail of the plans with the applicant, Gary Davis.

The development would include single-storey holiday lodges of round pine-log construction, containing a kitchen and dining room, a lounge and two bedrooms, possibly with additional storage in the roof. Each would have space to the side for car parking and a garden.

Mr Davis plans to sell or have on long lease approximately half the units as holiday homes with the other half rented out on as little as one-week rents to tourists.

Brian Sheasby, development control team manager, said: "Government guidance does not preclude creation of tourist accommodation in the countryside.

"However, the proposed scheme does not rate highly in respect of its tests for sustainability."

He said it entailed development in an isolated spot, rather than in or adjacent to an existing rural settlement and involved new-build rather than re-use of existing buildings.

Mr Davis said he had only just responded to the recommendation to refuse his plans so felt it would be unfair to make comment at this stage.

The proposals are set to be discussed at tomorrow's development control meeting at Futures Park, Bacup from 6.30pm.