‘Curb lorries to stop Hyndburn rat-runners’

12:23pm Monday 3rd November 2008

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CALLS have been made for weight restrictions and traffic calming measures in a village when a new multi-million pound road is built.

Councillors approved plans for a £10million single carriageway link road to reduce pollution and noise in Huncoat and Altham.

But at a Hyndburn Council planning meeting, ward councillors Paul Gott and Dave Parkins stressed that weight restrictions needed to be added to Bolton Road and around the villages to prevent the streets being used as a shortcut to the proposed 3.1km road.

They raised the issue after maps of the proposed road revealed it was a longer route to the Accrington bypass than the existing roads through Huncoat.

The new road to the planned Huncoat Waste Technology Park will link to nearby Whinney Hill tip in Altham and aims to take lorries off residential roads.

Coun Dave Parkins said: “I would like to see weight limits all around the village.”

It is hoped road, which is set to be constructed through green belt land to link two waste sites, will also reduce traffic around the village.

Coun John Griffiths, chairman of the planning meeting, said: “We do need traffic orders otherwise people will take the shortest route.”

Wagons will be able to access both waste sites from a new junction at the Griffin roundabout in Burnley Road, Huncoat.

Coun Paul Gott said: “The residents are really in a dilemma, they really don’t know which way to go.

“They would live with the road but want to be certain the clump of greenbelt land left in the middle will be left alone.”

At present lorries go to tip by coming off at junction seven of the M65 and going up through Whalley Road and onto Whinney Hill Road, or off at junction eight, and through the centre of Huncoat.