I WOULD like to thank all the residents who signed the petition against the planning application for the tipping of construction waste at Mount Pleasant Farm at Bull Hill, Darwen (LET, January 22).

However, I think it may have been a complete waste of time. For when I attended the Blackburn Council planning committee meeting, which decided not to object to the plan, I certainly had my eyes opened on planning procedures.

Coun Paul Browne told the meeting that he had 147 signatures from the residents of the Whitehall area protesting about the application.

Then Conservative Fred Slater said the site was ideal for tipping as it was between two sites that had already been used for tipping.

I asked if I would be allowed to speak as I wanted to tell Coun Slater that we were not protesting about the site, but about the means of getting to the site and that if he had taken the time to read our protest paper he would have been better informed. However, I was not allowed to speak so I just had to sit there and watch it being pushed through.

As far as I was concerned, it was railroaded through without one thought for all the people in the Whitehall area who had protested about this.

JAMES RICE, Bolton Road, Darwen.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.