I HAD no idea Haslingden police station had been sold until I read this week that plans were being drawn up to develop new houses on the site.

Until now, I had kind of hoped that one day, the powers that be at Lancashire Police would realise that there’s probably a link between a sense of rising anti-social behaviour in the Valley and the fact our police are pretty much entirely based out of one station near Waterfoot – if they are based in the Valley at all.

But given they don’t own the building any more, that seems unlikely.

So it’s encouraging to hear that someone plans to build homes on there, because empty buildings blight town centres and become a magnet for trouble, which would. be a curious end to an old police station.

Two things struck me about the proposed development.

The first is that the more of these sorts of developments Rossendale approves, involving plots of land already used by something else, the less surely the demand will be to dig up green field to build the 5,000 homes the area has to make room for.

That can surely only be a good thing.

The second is that if developers are showing an interest in building more homes in Haslingden, then the council needs to make the most of powers to levy charges to support other services in the area which the people living there might use.

It continues to be a source of frustration across the town that, for a relatively small sum of money, Haslingden Baths could re-open to the public quickly.

At the moment, campaigners and fund-raisers are doing all they can to find that money.

If I was Rossendale council, I’d be looking at developer donations as a way of making up for past mistakes and facilitating the re-opening of the pool ASAP.