RESIDENTS who have been living on an ‘unfinished’ road for seven years are angry that Pendle Council has granted planning permission for another housing development next to their homes.

The 10 houses in May Tree Close, Briercliffe, were built in 2007, but the developer did not surface the road, leaving manhole covers raised up in the middle of the road.

Residents were also left without street lighting.

The land that the houses are on has since been sold to another agent who owns the adjacent land that has just been granted planning permission for 10 houses.

Darren Ensby, who lives in May Tree Close, said: “How can they start thinking about building more houses here when they haven’t even finished this?

“It’s really dark here, especially in winter and we’re always getting punctured tyres from the state of the road.

“We’re paying full council tax like everyone else but getting nothing. The new owner of the land told us that the council will take responsibility for it, but only when it meets a certain standard and he wanted us to pay to do it.

“Everyone just refused to pay because it doesn’t feel like our responsibility to fork out for it.”

Lancashire County Council said: “Unfortunately, the developer did not make an adoption agreement with the county council. This means we don’t have an official record of the road, how it was built, or how it will stand up to future use. As this is not a public road, we can’t use county council funding to bring it up to a standard where it can be adopted.

“However, if residents or the developers are prepared to pay for the investigations and any work needed to bring the road up to standard, we will be able to adopt it.

“We can’t consider the possible adoption of the second stretch of road until we have looked into whether the first can be adopted.“

"Although we can’t contribute public funds towards the investigation and improvements, we can advise residents on issues such as the collection of private funding. They should email or call our highways team and we will be happy to help.”

The issue was due to be discussed at last night’s Brierfield and Reedley Area Committee Meeting, where the owner was proposing to pay 50 per cent of the cost of bringing the road up to standard if residents paid an equal share.