NEW homes face being damaged by flying Cricket balls when the season begins later this month after a neighbouring club claimed its warnings were ignored.

Haslingden Cricket Club warned Rossendale Council that the plans for homes on the old auction mart site between Private Lane and Broadway would require the properties being protected from the balls.

Club secretary Chris Aspin said he set out the club's concerns in great detail when plans for the estate, part of which is just across Private Lane from the boundary wall, were made public early last year but he received no reply.

At the committee the plans were approved without any condition relating to the proximity of the cricket ground -- the council said it could not put such a condition on planning permission.

Now the club has asked Rossendale and Darwen MP Janet Anderson to step into the argument. She said: "All the club wants now is a meeting with the council and residents to sort this matter out."

Mr Aspin said: "Seven houses with a total of 80 odd windows, some of them very large, are likely to be hit. I would estimate that about 30 balls go over the Private Lane wall every season but I have seen three sixes struck in a single over."

Mr Aspin recommends putting up metal grids during matches. He said: "We shall not let the matter drop and we shall be considering what action to take if the council, having brought about a situation which could cause injury to people and damage to property, washes its hands of the matter."

Chairman of Rossendale development and environmental services committee Coun Chris Wadsworth said he was not aware of any planning law in relation to proximity of houses to sporting pitches and he was not on the committee when the application was approved.

He said: "I think it is a matter for the residents to take up with the developer."

A spokesman for McDermott Homes in Burnley which built the homes said the firm will look into the situation.

A spokesman for the developer said work would be carried out to improve Private Lane, once an agreement had been reached with Lancashire County Council.