Campaign Gathering Pace

A very useful and productive meeting was held between representatives of the Waterfoot Green Belt Residents Association and Janet Anderson (MP for Rossendale and Darwen) yesterday evening (8th November 2007).

Janet has committed to write to Hazel Harding (Leader of Lancashire Council Council - LCC) to request a meeting, to be attended by representatives of Waterfoot Green Belt Residents Association, at which LCC will be requested to define precisely how a formal and robust consultative process can be commenced.

The first formal communication from Waterfoot Green Belt Residents Association to LCC was posted yesterday in the form of a letter addressed to Robert Grugel, Buildings and Development Officer for the Education Directorate at LCC. This letter was also copied to a number of other parties including other LCC officials, Rossendale Borough Councillors, The Open Spaces Society and The Council for the Protection of Rural England (should you wish to receive a full pdf or MS Word copy of this letter please email roger@thomsonfm.co.uk).

Although no official confirmation of this has been received (other than via telephone conversations with various parties), we are led to believe that LCC have amended the original proposals for the new school in the light of very preliminary comments from the residents (not, I would add, from the Waterfoot Green Belt Residents Association). However, we also understand that even these revised plans that were "unveiled" in some secrecy on 1st November 2007 have already been superseded and as such we have not been provided any plans for these revised proposals.

Again, we will look to keep all residents as fully up to date with developments as possible and hope that we can continue to rely on your support in respect of this very worthwhile cause.