Council bosses vow to help firm stay in Pendle

3:50pm Sunday 13th January 2008

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COUNCIL bosses want a 150-year-old fruit and vegetable firm to stay in Pendle - despite a raft of complaints about the business from neighbours.

Bosses at Richard Wellock and Sons, Skipton Road, Trawden, considered relocating after residents complained about night-time noise.

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But director James Wellock said the firm would only move if a viable package was presented to them by the council.

And council bosses, at a meeting of the Colne Committee, said that they would do "everything in their power" to keep the firm in Pendle.

Council officers had asked residents to keep a log of the noise problems ready for the matter to be discussed at the meeting.

After being presented with residents' evidence, councillors said the "horrific problem seemed to have got worse".

Trawden Forest Parish Council had thrown its weight behind residents' campaign to have enforcement action taken against the firm.

But council leader Alan Davies said the council needed to do everything in its power to retain the firm, which employs 55 people.

He said: "Neighbours are still keeping a log of all the issues.

"Some of those are horrific reading and in many cases things are getting worse rather than better.

"There is no doubt that it is a successful business that we want to keep in Pendle and we need to do more than we can to avoid it going.

"We need to come up with an option that everyone is happy with."

Mr Wellock told the meeting that the firm had taken measures to reduce noise and disturbances, which included resurfacing and buying electric fork lifts.

He said: "We have gone to great expense to make sure that we operate within the law.

"We certainly do not disregard the neighbours' points of views.

"To get the noise down we have put plenty of measures in.

"We have resurfaced some of the outside area, we have taken away the drag lifts in front of the warehouses and we have purchased electrical fork lifts trucks to reduce noise.

"We have been going for 150 years and I hope to continue forward and prosper.

"I am looking to Pendle Council as an authority to help us stay here "There will only be a possibility of quitting Trawden if there is a viable package put together to allow us to do so."