Anotice was recently published in the public notices in your paper, advertising that planning permission was being sought for the extension of Barbara Castle Way through to Montague Street.

I am the Conservative spokesperson for regeneration and I would like to formally object to the proposed planning application. There has been a public meeting for interested parties to discuss this topic, but, for whatever reason, I was excluded.

My main objection is that the optimum line for this road has been seriously compromised and that the almost 90 degrees approach on to Montague Street is potentially dangerous when, as promised, the whole stretch of BCW will be equipped with synchronised traffic signals, designed to keep traffic flowing at optimum speed.

The accident at the Earcroft M65 junction indicated what could happen when an insecure load, or high-sided vehicle, goes around a sharp bend at a speed that renders the load unstable.

The extension passes too close to the new houses to the north and effectively isolates a social club from its customers.

I have been given excuses that the time frame and the cost of demolishing the social club are the reasons for such a decision, but I see a very different reason. A controversial planning application is on the file for a building to be constructed right slap bang on the original and certainly safest route. Interestingly, none of these applications have come before committee before the election.

There are no restrictions preventing anybody making an application to build a structure on land that does not belong to them. But to apply to build a large two-storey building on land that has stood blighted for 20 years, awaiting our much-needed inner relief road, takes the biscuit. Such an application must have cost a lot of money to process and to risk putting it on a third person's land before looking at the designation of the land would be foolhardy in the extreme.

Maybe we should take a look at who owns the land and then at who has made the application and perhaps we can better understand the connection and, more importantly, why it has taken months to process the building application when our Citizens Charter stipulates much shorter target times for processing planning applications.

The land in question is owned by the Borough of Blackburn with Darwen and has been set aside for the route of Barbara Castle Way. The building application has been submitted on behalf of the college.

I would be delighted to work with the college in finding and allocating land for an extension of their facility, but not on the land reserved for an important part of this town's infrastructure. A road that opens up the town to all of its citizens and furthermore clearly defines the town centre.

This is the kind of situation you read about in other towns and I would like to distance myself from such an abuse of power in the town, in which I am proud to serve as a councillor.

ALAN COTTAM, (Conservative Councillor, Livesey with Pleasington), Pleasington Lane, Pleasington, Blackburn.