RESIDENTS living near a proposed mobile home site in Accrington fear house prices will suffer if it is allowed to go ahead.

Plans to put nine mobile homes on land off Springhill Road have been submitted to Hyndburn Council.

The site houses a small number of lock-up garages and access to the mobile homes would be from Spring Vale, a narrow back street.

Council planners have recommended that the plans be approved and a decision will be made by the planning committee on Wednesday.

But residents living nearby have written to the committee urging members to reject the proposals.

They fear the value of their houses may go down if the plans are approved and they are concerned about the increased traffic that would use the narrow entrance to the site, which is used by a lot of people including school children.

Their letters state that several mobile home and caravan sites have already sprung up in the area in recent years, including ones in Coal Pit Lane and Charter Street, and that they did not think another should be permitted.

One resident said: "I would have thought that, under the strategic planning and development control, they would be against further sites of this nature in a residential area.

"New houses, not temporary homes, are needed."

Another said that sites of this nature "deteriorate into an eyesore" unless the mobile homes were renewed every 10 years or so.

In a report to the committee, development control manager Brent Clarkson said the applicant had been asked to provide plans for a turning point at the end of the proposed private access road before Wednesday's meeting to address concerns over the access.

He said the site layout would be "visually satisfactory" and that a condition could be included requiring approval for the colour of the mobile homes.

Mr Clarkson added that objections raised about the number of other caravan sites in the area and the effect on the value of properties in the area were not things the committee could take into consideration.