A VILLAGE on the West Pennine Moors is to get a new caravan site.

It will be on land next to Hob Lane Farm in Edgworth, between Darwen and Bolton.

The proposed tourist base was revealed when owner Kenneth Warner successfully applied for planning permission for a new access road off Blackburn Road.

The scheme for a maximum of five caravans or camper vans and 10 tents does not need formal planning permission.

But the application for the new access road and junction generated 23 letters of objection.

They included the width of the Blackburn Road carriageway and the danger of caravans manoeuvring very slowly on a fast road with limited visibility.

There were also objections from North Turton Parish Council and West Pennine ward councillor Colin Rigby on road safety grounds.

Mr Warner, who bought the farm in September 2018 to build a new house in the yard, attended this month’s meeting of Blackburn with Darwen Council Planning Committee by phone.

He told councillors: “I could access the field from Hob Lane without planning permission. I considered this to be a much better form of access to the site on the grounds of road safety, use of the site and effect on the Green Belt.

“The proposed access can achieve good visibility and access.

“Unfortunately the people I sold the barns to have fallen out with a number of neighbours for a variety of reasons. People are lumping me in with those arguments of which I am no part.

“Some of the objections seem to be more to do with the idea of the caravan site which is not the point of the issue here.

“All I want to do is open a small rural tourist business which I suspect, or hope, will be more in demand in the current climate and I want to do it in as safe a way as possible.”

Tory planning spokesman Cllr Paul Marrow said: “I do have some concerns about safety along Blackburn Road.”

Council planning manager Gavin Prescott said Mr Warner’s proposal would ensure adequate highway safety with new road signs on Blackburn Road as a condition of planning permission to ensure this.

The new access was approved.