LAST month I wrote about Jack’s Key Lodge, which has become a vast wasteland after 25 years of failed redevelopments. Now I've tracked down the man who once had big plans for the area.

ROB HOLLINGWORTH has finally broken his silence over the fate of Jack’s Key Lodge.

He told me: “I’ve spent nearly 20 years and over £400,000 of my own money on it. And now it’s not my problem any more.”

And he added: “I’m not sorry to see the back of it.

"But it could all have been so different with just a bit of imagination from local councillors.

“I wonder if the council have any idea just how much of a problem the lodge is.

"It has filled rapidly on several occasions over the years and it only needs the narrow drainage shaft to get blocked for there to be real danger.

“Millions of gallons could rush down the Darwen valley.

"It doesn’t bear thinking about. What are the council – and the Crown who own it now – doing about the danger? ”

The site was owned by Reed Decorative Products untill 1982 and Rob obtained it from local property group Glenranco.

His firm Jack Keys Ltd was wound up a year or so ago.

Jack’s Key could have been a fantastic development by now, says Rob, if the then Labour-controlled council had taken the advice of their experienced officers when he first put in his ambitious plans for the lodge and the council’s 15 acres towards Bull Hill.

Quality houses, a hotel and conference centre, sporting and recreational activities on the lake – the planning team loved it.

He had spent a small fortune setting it all up. But, at the eleventh hour, councillors decided to put it out to tender and another developer moved in with a bid of just £200,000 extra.

Says Rob: “This developer was only interested in the housing land.

"The rest of the scheme was a non-starter. I’d built good houses all over Darwen and won awards. I had to sack 40 good lads.

"A few went working there but most of their brickies and joiners were from out of town.”

For several years Rob tried other avenues with the council but got nowhere.

He said he spent untold thousands trying to appease Lancashire County Council, which had responsibility for reservoirs, while coming up with ambitious new plans for a leisure development.

One idea was to infill much of the lodge with hard core and soil, leaving a lake with a depth of perhaps just three feet.

It would have solved the problem of the dangerous bank and been ideal for fishing and boating. But it didn’t get anywhere.

Perhaps a hotel and conference centre on the council-owned eight acres on the Cranberry side? No, thanks.

Says Rob: “The land cost me £160,000 about 20 years ago, but now I’ve just walked away from it.

"I just kept hitting a brick wall and finally enough was enough.

"If they’d only taken up my idea of making the lake shallower it could all have worked out really well.

"If they had let me use it for infill I’d have given them the lake. They couldn’t lose.”

LCC put a lot of pressure on Rob over safety at the lodge and he did everything they asked.

Who are they pressuring now, he wonders?

l The reservoir was built in the early 1800s to serve local factories.

It became popular for boating, fishing and swimming but, because of safety fears, it has been largely empty and overgrown for years.