A PROPOSED work of art planned for a Ribble Valley village has been likened to the Berlin Wall by residents determined to stop it from happening.

Mid Pennine Arts wants one of its six landmark Panopticon sculptures to be built on ground owned by Castle Cement off Chatburn Old Road, Chatburn.

The scheme for the site involves creating an artistic wall which people would be able to walk up to and admire the Ribble Valley from.

It is hoped thousands of people a year would travel to East Lancashire to admire the sculptures.

But one local resident from Old Road, who did not want to be named, said: "Coming into Chatburn there's a school and a very busy centre. There are young children and old people. Already one old lady was killed last year. Anyone who wants to bring more traffic into Chatburn is clearly not right in the head."

And another added: "It will be a most ugly thing. It will be four metres high, now where's the beauty in that in what is such a beautiful area?"

From 560 questionnaires handed out to villagers, 87 were returned with 12 people in favour of the development, six didn't care either way and 67 were opposed to it on various grounds including traffic problems, health and safety, litter, and those who just felt the project was a waste of money.

Among the 100-strong protesters who packed Chatburn Primary School was Ribble Valley Council leader Coun John Hill who added his voice to the opposition.

And he slammed the steering group, made up of Mid Pennine Arts, Ribble Valley Council, artist Nayan Kulkarni and East Lancashire Arts Network, which has been in charge of finding a suitable site for the scheme.

He said: "It was never intended to cause this amount of upset or unrest. It is supposed to be a joyous thing that is supposed to bring pleasure to people, but all it's done is cause the most enormous irritation, annoyance and anger."

Mid Pennine Arts had hoped to build on top of a 500m hill near Hurst Green which was rejected.

Speaking of the Chatburn location, Coun Graham Sowter, a member of the steering group, said: "This location had the wow factor. There was the quarry, that when you looked down you could see something like 300million years of archaeology. Then if you look slightly to your left or right you see the much more picturesque scenes of Pendle Hill and across to Pendle or our more recent townscapes of Clitheroe and Clitheroe Castle."

John Heap, director of the community committee on Ribble Valley Council, added: "One of the principles behind these viewpoints was that it should be about transforming people's view of what East Lancashire is about. Getting rid of the cloth cap image we have been saddled with and to remind ourselves and visitors what a beautiful part of the country we live in."

The proposal will be discussed by the community committee at a meeting on Tuesday.