VILLAGERS have until tomorrow to make their views known on an amendment to a controversial planning application for Irwell Springs in Weir.

The planning application for a 42-house estate on the former mill site off Heald Lane sparked residents to form the Weir Lodges and Wildlife Trust to try to preserve three lodges on the site and mature woodland as a local amenity.

Rossendale planners turned down the plan and asked the applicants to find an alternative access to the site.

But now the Wordsworth Corporation, from Cheshire, has written to Rossendale Council to say it would introduce traffic calming on Heald Lane to try to combat residents fears of increased congestion and it would adopt a "minimalist" approach to the treatment of the lodges which are contained within the application site. Residents have until tomorrow to make their views known to planners who will discuss the amendment to the plan at a development control sub-committee in the near future.

Chairman of the trust John Glendinning urged residents to write in if they have concerns about the application for large homes on the site.

He said: "We still do not feel that our concerns have been properly addressed. We feel that Heald Lane could not cope with the additional traffic a development such as this would create and that the developer needs to seek an alternative access to the site."

Residents have carried out their own survey of traffic on Heald Lane and The Moorlands and will be submitting the findings to the council.