A RESIDENTS’ group is calling on county hall bosses to stand by their ‘moral obligations’ and return a Rossendale tip back to its natural habitat.

Members of Stacksteads Country Park Group have urged Lancashire County Council to stick to a 20-year-old pledge to revert Rakeshead Household Recycling Centre, back to its natural moorland state if it was ever to close.

Stacksteads Coun Christine Lamb said: “Lancashire County Council applied to Rossendale Council for temporary permission to open a household waste centre back in the late 1980s.

“One of the conditions was that the site be returned to its natural habitat of moorland six months after the site was vacated.

"Over the next few years, LCC resubmitted this temporary application three times, each time including this same condition.

“But then in 2005 the county council applied to make the site permanent. It is at this stage we believe the condition was left out without the the knowledge of the residents.”

If the condition was left out, county hall chiefs no longer have any legal obligation to transform the Blackwood Road centre back to what it was.

Coun Lamb said: “It is my view and that of all the Stacksteads residents who agreed to the application that the county council at least has a moral obligation to do what they promised.”

Nobody from the cou-nty council was available to comment.