PLANS to build community allotments in Loveclough look set to be given the go-ahead after spending four years in the pipeline.

Limey Valley Allotment Association’s poposal to create 28 plots on an area of council-owned land west of Burnley Road have been recommended for approval at Tuesday’s planning meeting.

The site will also have parking spaces for seven cars, a pond, improvement to the area’s access and fencing and landscaping work done to it.

The plots will also have associated sheds and greenhouses, a communal allotment building and a compositing toilet housed in a timber building.

The development follows proposals to build 15 detached houses on the site being refused by the Development Control Committee in October.

Stephen Stray, planning officer at Rossendale Council, said in the report: “The application seeks permission for uses that are appropriate in principle in the countryside.

“And, subject to the conditions, the proposed development will not detract to an unacceptable extent from the essentially open and rural character of the area, neighbour amenity, biodiversity, flood risk or highway safety.”

The Development Control Committee will make a decision on the application at Bacup Futures Park at Tuesday’s meeting, beginning at 6.30pm.

Derrick Bartlett-Smith, chairman of the Limey Valley Residents Association, said: “We’ve been pushing to get an allotment for the area for a number of years.

“We are working hand in glove with the council to help provide the facility.

“Hopefully it will go through this time and we will have the place ready for the next planting season.

“We wanted the allotments to go through early in the year.

“But there have been comments put through that have held us back.”