A BUSINESSMAN has won his fight against a legal notice which wrongly ordered him to clean up thousands of pounds of waste near his home.

Blackburn with Darwen Council had included the home of Paul Room, 39, of Lower Whitehalgh Barn, off Stockclough Lane, Feniscowles, in the legal notice to clean up polluted land.

But eight months after it first came to light, his home has been removed from the order.

In 2000 officials at Blackburn with Darwen Council issued enforcement notices for 70,000 cubic metres of waste to be removed from land on Lower Whitehalgh Farm, off Brokenstones Road.

But Mr Room's barn, which he bought from the owner of the farm in 1997, was mistakenly included in the notice, even though it was half a mile away.

He said he had been paying council tax on the property ever since he bought it, and spent a year converting the home before moving in during 1998, but officials failed to recognise it was no longer part of the farm.

Mr Room said he had been told it had taken so long because officials had forgotten about it, and that he would not be completely satisfied until he had it in writing.

He said: "I found out about this notice on my land about eight months ago, but I hadn't heard anything.

"I am pleased it has been removed, but it should never have been there in the first place.

"I have asked for it to be put to me in writing in the next 10 days, but if their previous record is anything to go by it will probably not arrive in that time."

The waste was dumped on the farmland between 1999 and 2000, to create a golf course that was never completed.

And despite a court case and the council's recognition it was partly to blame for delays in removing the rubbish, the majority of the waste, in the form of large bunds, remains on site.

Plans have now been submitted for a £13million holiday village that could see 120 cabins built on the site.

Coun Andy Kay, the council's executive member of regeneration, said: "I am not sure that it had just been sat on someone's desk.

"At the time it was a case of getting the area designated quickly. On some occasions it's fairly hard to define where lines are, and it's better to be able to exclude later than not include enough at the time."

He said the council never had any intention to take enforcement action against Mr Room but had removed his premises because of his concerns.