A POPULAR Rawtenstall leisure resort has lodged an official complaint with county council chiefs after they refused to allow signage promoting the venue.

Golf Rossendale Driving Range and Academy, based at Marl Pits, says it has been campaigning for brown tourism signs for more than two years, even offering to pay for the work itself.

The county council has so far turned down the applications after consulting Department for Transport guidelines.

Amanda Grundy, a director at Golf Rossendale, said dozens of players from Lancashire, Yorkshire and Manchester had complained about a lack of directions to the academy in the Valley.

She has written to Prime Minister David Cameron and the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, Eric Pickles MP, to highlight the issue.

She said: “We do not understand why other venues qualify for brown signs and we don’t. The biggest compl-aint from our golfers is that they can’t find us.

“We had to laugh when the officer from the county council got lost on his way to us when he was coming to tell us we don’t qualify for signs.

“We have invested hundreds of thousands of pounds in Golf Rossendale, vastly improved the Marl Pits site, provided the Valley with another first-class sporting facility, and created 10 jobs.

“We have done all this without asking for a penny of public money. I don’t think it is too much to ask for a couple of signs which we are willing to pay for ourselves.

“It appears to me that once again Rossendale is seen as the poor relation of Lancashire.”

The venue is recognised by England Golf and the Golf Foundation, and was named Rossendale community business of the year last year.

Oliver Starkey, the county council’s highways manager for Rossendale, said: “The main purpose of brown tourism signs is to direct visitors to their destination during the last stage of their journey.

“There is currently a review of tourism signing in Rossendale underway and, as part of this, it is proposed that new signage will be provided for ‘Marl Pits Sports Complex’ which includes the golf driving range.”