DETERMINED residents are to fight plans to change a historic Cowpe mill into apartments.

And the Environment Agency are backing their claims after writing a letter to Rossendale council stressing their concerns.

As many as 65 villagers, riders and walkers from the community voted at a meeting about their three main concerns - flash flooding, traffic and the apartments' image - following the unveiling of plans to convert Kearns' Mill, a former woollen dying mill, into 46 houses and apartments.

Planning permission has been requested by Lancashire-based Hurstwood Group, developers and owners of the historic mill. Residents' arguments are set to be raised at a planning committee meeting for Rossendale Council on November 4 where plans for the mill could be on the agenda.

Businessman Roger Thompson, 32, of Cowpe Road, has been nominated as community spokesman for the residents.

He said: "The people who may move here would not be very happy with such high flooding risks. We are looking after their interests as well as our own. We just don't think this is suitable at all."

Residents said the river burst its banks this summer and that it would be very difficult to get insurance for the proposed properties.

They also said the road was too narrow and twisty to support more cars.

An Environment Agency spokesman, said: "The flood defence systems at the site of the mill are not satisfactory at present for the plans to go ahead.

"The banks are not in a fit state, the drains around the reservoir are not sufficient enough to drain off when excess rain falls for there to be more homes."

The Environment Agency also pointed out how culverts run underneath the mill which could mean a risk of flooding directly into the mill.