A ROAD engineer has dismissed environmentalist claims that county highways bosses are biased in favour of the controversial A56 by-pass in Pendle.

More than 150 people visited the first day of a travelling exhibition that will follow the proposed line of the by-pass during the rest of this week to give locals their say on the future of the road.

Frank Anderton, an engineer at Lancashire County Council's highways department, said the fact that the exhibition, which started at Colne Municipal Hall yesterday, was being held showed that County Hall was prepared to listen to residents' views.

Campaigners from Friends of the Earth and other environmental groups handed out their own leaflets opposing the by-pass scheme.

They claimed the County Council is biased towards building the road and had not provided the public with full details of the impact the by-pass would have on the countryside.

But Mr Anderton said: "We want to be open about this. We're not saying 'you must have a by-pass'. We want to hear people's views, from both sides, on this.

"The road will have benefits but at a cost and it's up to people to decide whether they are prepared to accept that cost."

Mr Anderton said the new road would ease traffic congestion on gridlocked North Valley Road, Colne, and reduce traffic through Foulridge, Kelbrook, Earby and Thornton-in-Craven but have an impact on the countryside it would run through. The route of the proposed road would take it largely along the line of the former railway line between Colne and Skipton, leaving it to loop around Earby past the North Holme estate.

Mr Anderton said county would look at other means of reducing traffic congestion in the North Valley but the disadvantages to many smaller-scale schemes was that they simply shifted the traffic problem from one area to another.

The environmentalists' leaflet, One for the Road, argued the by-pass would mean building a new six-mile route through some of Pendle's most attractive countryside just to ease congestion on a half-mile stretch of North Valley Road.

"The road will just be the start of the degradation of our rural environment," the leaflet added, warning the new road would lead to new homes and businesses along the route.

Further exhibitions will be held in Foulridge, Kelbrook, Earby and Thornton-in-Craven over the next four days. People have until the end of the month to have their say.

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