CONTROVERSIAL plans to build 500 new homes in Barrowford have been given the green light despite outrage from hundreds of residents.

Pendle Borough Council's Development Management Committee approved Peel Investments plan to construct the homes on land from the Barrowford bypass to Wheatley Lane Road and across the Wheatley Springs estate.

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The plan, labelled Trough Laithe, was unanimously rejected by Barrowford and Wester Parishes Committee and more than 100 residents attended the meeting on Monday to express their fears.

John Endersby, who has been campaigning against the development, said that there is no demand for housing and there were no school places to accommodate the inevitable influx of new children.

He said: "Population in this borough has been stable for the last 14 years and actually dropped in 2014.

"In March 2015 the council also reported 1,200 unoccupied homes in Pendle and most of these are still empty.

"There is no justification for spoiling one of the jewels in our local crown.

"I have also done a full survey of every school and they are full now. There have been expansions but those were made for current demand."

St Thomas' CE Primary School has been suggested by Peel Investments as the school that children on the new site could go to, but Rod Marsden, chair of governors at the Wheatley Lane Road school, said the it has never been informed.

He said: "It would have been very courteous for the developer to have contacted the head teacher or the governing body and say 'oh by the way'."

Flooding was another major concern of residents after the Boxing Day deluge in East Lancashire.

Resident Sue Nike said that the issues needed to be looked at again.

She said: "Those flooding issues that happened at Christmas were not in the original report and it's a real issue. "You only have to look at the river beds at the bottom of this development as the banking has been washed away and it's not that much further up the hillside where these houses will be built."

Councillors Linda Crossley and Christian Wakeford of the Barrowford ward rejected the application but they were out voted by the rest of the committee who agreed the legal costs of rejecting the plan would be too high.

Ken Hartley, chair of the committee, said: "If I had my way I would not let Westminster anywhere near Pendle planning.

"It's a distasteful situation but these figures for building new homes have been imposed on us by central government and we cannot afford the cost of rejecting it."