VITAL TO KEEP LAND OPEN

MARIE-LOUISE Charlton is right to oppose the proposed housing development on the land between Grane Road and Holcombe Road in Haslingden, and to suggest that the area could be turned into an important public asset (‘Land could be an asset’, Your Views, March 26).

It could be developed as a marvellous semi-wild park as a valuable recreation facility.

There would be plenty of grassland with patches of wild flowers like the area sown by the Council on the side of the road at Cloughfold a few years ago.

There could be clumps of flowering shrubs and with judicious planting the site could become the venue for a Springtime cherry blossom event similar to those held annually in Japan.

It would continue to hold a lot of wildlife and act as an important flood prevention measure - as it does now - by retaining a large amount of water from heavy downpours flowing into the River Ogden to cause problems in Helmshore and Irwell Vale,

The proposed development in Grane Village has nothing to do with Rossendale’s housing needs. The economy of the local area does not provide the level of earnings to encourage 136 local households to jump at the chance of buying an expensive new-build house on a swanky estate.

Make no mistake, this proposed development is aimed at commuters with higher level earnings outside the area.

It would certainly appeal to many of the hundreds (thousands?) of people daily driving as fast as they can, in spite of speed measures, between the Greater Manchester and Greater Preston areas and whose columns of cars have made the inhabited parts of Grane Road a living nightmare.

High rainfall events are becoming more frequent on account of the increasingly erratic meanders of the Jet Stream caused by climate change.

On the 25/26 October 2019 a 1,000 mile front carried by the Jet Stream dropped enough rain on England and Wales to initiate 89 flood alerts.

There have been three very high rainfall events in recent years - the Boxing Day flood 26 December 2015, 16 March 2019 and Storm Brendan 13/14 January 2020.

The whole site in question extends to c.6 hectares.

Fifty millimetres of rain in a short period would deposit 2,000 cubic metres of water on the area.

This certainly happened on the three occasions mentioned.

On none of these occasions did the people in houses and commercial premises immediately below the area (the site of the old bleach works) report any problems with run-off.

Planning Policy Guidelines state clearly that the run-off from a development must not exceed that of previous amounts. The proposed development cannot possibly achieve this and the run-off from a large built-up area into the already flood-prone River Ogden would cause major problems in Helmshore and Irwell Vale.

It is therefore very important to preserve this piece of land as open space and as a major flood defence.

Tony Hodbod M Sc, Holden Hall Farm

Grane Road

Haslingden