A ROW is brewing over plans to create an access road at a Rossendale village to a controversial windfarm.

Each structure at the Crook Hill farm, near the border of Rossendale, Calderdale and Rochdale, would stand 125-metres high.

Residents are angry about the prospect of machinery for the 12 turbines being brought from the M66, through Rawtenstall, Bacup and Shawforth, to the remote moorland site.

Next week the borough’s planning committee will consider proposals to allow an access road to the windfarm from the junction of Market Street and Landgate at Shawforth.

But planning officers in Rossendale are recommending that the Shawforth road be rejected because it would generate a significant number of lorry trips, which the junction was not equipped to deal with.

People living along the route of the last major windfarm project in Edenfield, the controversial £50millon Scout Moor development, complained four years ago that the monster trucks used to deliver the turbines had damaged their foundations.

Town councillor Tom Aldred said: “There has been anecdotal evidence before that the vibrations made by these lorries had caused cracks in the foundations of homes along the route.

“People cannot be 100 per cent that they can lay the blame at their door but the cracks certainly were not there before.”

He added: “The river runs directly underneath the road and there are concerns over the suitability of the bridge."

The creation of a large turning circle, for lorries, and the establishment of a wide access road across unspoilt moorland are also worries.

Earlier this week councillors in neighbouring Calderdale approved another access route, via Reddyshore Scout Gate in Walsden, near Todmorden, subject to legal agreements.