PENWORTHAM bypass is environmentally very damaging and should have been scrapped a long time ago, according to eco-campaigners.

Friends of the Earth have joined forces with the Council for the Protection of Rural England and Transport 2000 to persuade the county council to look to the future, after a decision on prioritising road schemes was delayed yet again.

Councillors at a highways and transportation committee meeting discussed which, if any, of four road schemes should be contained in the Local Transport Plan to be hand to the government in July.

But while other county councils are consulting the public, campaigners say Lancashire has put off the decision until a special meeting on Wednesday May 10.

The four schemes still under scrutiny are the Heysham-M6 Link, A56 Village Bypasses (Pendle), Penwortham Bypass and Ormskirk Bypass.

Campaigners claim that none of the road schemes is an effective solution to the problems that they are supposed to address and all are environmentally very damaging. And they see the postponed decision as a simple one -- that all four schemes should be scrapped.

Frank Kennedy of Friends of the Earth, slammed Lancashire County Council as "arrogant".

He said: "When Lancashire County Council consulted the public on its draft plan last year, road building was by far the least popular priority for spending money.

"It would be an appalling display of arrogance if they were to ignore this and choose to ask for tens of millions of public money for their own favourite road scheme."

John Nairne, of Lancashire CPRE, added: "These plans for new road developments really are blasts from the past which should have been scrapped long ago.

"They are at best a short-term fix, but will make problems worse in the long term by encouraging greater traffic growth.

"You simply can't justify destroying some of the county's most valued countryside for a few years worth of traffic relief."

A spokesperson for Lancashire County Council, responded to the claims by added: "During the consultation process, 476 residents wrote in regarding the Penwortham Bypass. Of these, there were 80 per cent who said they were in favour of it."