RESIDENTS fed up with increasing numbers of Silentnight lorries loading and unloading opposite their homes have been told there is nothing that Pendle Council can do to help them.

Under a planning permission passed in 1980, Silentnight Beds was allowed to load or unload no more than four wagons per day at part of its Moss Shed plant in Barnoldswick fronting Victoria Road. Furthermore, that activity was limited to between 9am and 4.30pm Monday to Saturday.

Victoria Road resident Malcolm Brown told Pendle Council's West Craven committee that many more than four vehicles per day were now loaded and unloaded there, often into double figures, and it started from 8am and went on till 6pm most nights.

But a report to the committee concluded there was nothing that could be done.

It said that because the planning condition had clearly been breached for more than four years, it was too late to take enforcement action.

Mr Brown and other residents found that hard to accept: "If they can stop night flights into Heathrow Airport on a planning condition then surely a poxy little bedding firm in Barnoldswick can be stopped," said Mr Brown.

Another condition of the original 1980 planning permission required Silentnight to construct "continuous kerbs with bollards" on the factory side of Victoria Road, between the loading bays. It appeared that work was never done.

But again there was nothing the council could do because of the length of time that had elapsed.

Mr Brown urged the council, for safety's sake, to paint a white line separating the road from the footway on the factory side and erect bollards along the dividing line to stop wagons driving on it.

"I know jobs are important, but what price a life?" he asked. "How many jobs equate to one of our kids?"

However, planning officer Janet Filbin insisted that, from a planning point of view, the council's hands were tied.

Coun Margaret Bell, chairman of the West Craven committee, said it had been a long running issue stretching back over 20 years.

"From the council's point of view there is nothing we can do and I think we have to finally accept that," she said.

However she did proposed asking the highways department to provide bollards at the end of the remaining footpath on the factory side, effectively blocking it off and directing pedestrians to the other side of the road.