FENDER Farm is in the Greenbelt as the Planning Committee ruled against housing firm Redrow Homes building houses on the land, securing the future of the West Wirral Riding School.

A petition of 10,000 names against the proposals were presented to the Planning Committee to 'say no to Redrow!'

Chair of Planning Committee, Coun John Cocker said: "The council does not accept the inspectorate's recommendation for the following reasons:

"Development of the site for housing is not necessary to satisfy the increased requirement of 10,500 new dwellings for this Unitary Development Plan period (UDP). Sufficient additional land has already been identified since March 1995 to accommodate the 150 units proposed for this site.

"The development of this site for housing would involved unacceptably extensive land raising to prevent flooding of roads and surfaces. This would result in a visually intrusive development to the detriment of the principles of policy LAN 1 and policy LA3, and to the Green Belt principle of preventing encroachment into the open countryside.

"The developer has not made adequate provision to offset loss of the riding school and stables. In council's view no site has yet been demonstrated to be currently available which would be both acceptable in terms of the siting of a major indoor riding facility which would also be capable of differing in close proximity, a readily made accessible and adequate area of land for grazing. Fender Farm is in the greenbelt."

This drew loud applause from the strong support.

Planning Committee member Paul Connor said: "We have sent a message to the builder that we want our land. Common sense has beaten the builder."

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