RESIDENTS in Kearsley have told of their delight following the refusal of plans for a recycling plant they feared would make their lives a misery.

European company Wai Sang had applied to use a vacant unit at the Lyon Road Industrial Estate for a 24-hour-a-day plastic recycling operation, creating eight jobs.

The company planned to sort and compact the materials before transporting them off the site and claimed there would be no smells, fumes, ash, noise or vibration.

A Bolton Council officer's report recommending approval of the scheme said there would be only one or two HGV movements per week and the same number of vehicle movements per day. But Bolton Council's planning and highways committee unanimously rejected the plan after hearing from Springfield Road resident Edith Wadley.

She told the committee people already had to put up with disturbance from other vehicles from the industrial estate.

She said: "When the Springfield estate was built in the 1930s it was never envisaged that it would take all this traffic.

"Residents have had to endure noise, pollution and vibration for many years."

Mrs Wadley said that the company had provided no details about where the waste would be coming from.

Cllr Margaret Rothwell said: "They say there will not be many vehicles going to the site but I do not believe it.

"It might not seem a lot compared to what already goes down Springfield Road and Pilkington Road but it could be a case of the straw and the camel's back.

"People can only put up with so much."

Cllr Norman Critchley added: "We have just given approval to a children's centre in Birch Road so there will be an influx of children into the area."

After the meeting Mrs Wadley said: "We're jumping up in the air. This was something we just did not want."

Wai Sang's agent Paul Sedgwick, said an appeal from the firm was "unlikely".