RESIDENTS in Over and Little Hulton are furious they could be faced with more trucks transporting coal to and from an opencast mine -- and are once again launching into battle.

The controversial mine is due to start in the spring at the old Cutacre tip site despite a 20 year fight by residents to try to stop it. Developers UK Coal won planning permission on appeal.

A legal agreement was then signed which said some of the two million tonnes which will be dug out over a four year period would be transported by rail.

But the BEN revealed last week that the company was having difficulty getting Railtrack to install a connection from the site to the rail line between Atherton and Walkden and look set to transport all of the coal in the meantime by road. No condition, says the company, has been imposed that requires the company to move coal by rail.

The lorries are expected to use the roundabout on Salford Road taking the loads up the A6 to the motorway junction at Water Gate Lane. "We are absolutely furious," said John Booth of Thirlmere Road, secretary of the Over Hulton Anti-Opencast Group who represented almost 700 objectors to the original application.

"We understood that they were given permission to develop the site with the condition of transporting some of the coal by rail.

"We are left in the dark about what is going on.

"All regard the application to use lorries to transport the two million tonnes of coal from the site as a piece of cunning to avoid the construction of a rail head giving access to the railway line.

"At the moment I am trying to get the full details of the conditions for coal transport agreed by the Government's environment department."

Harold Brooks of Newland Drive says more lorries will create difficulties on an already extremely busy road.

"If you are talking lorries of up to 40 tonnes a time there will also be pollution and debris will fall off the lorries. I am very much against this."

Alan Walsh of Reynolds Close, also local councillor said: "If the rail link is not put in the then the whole thing should be deferred until there is a link.

"Nobody in Over Hulton wants this to go ahead. We do not want all the coal going out by road, that would be horrendous."

John Keeley of Crescent Avenue said: "It is all inevitable now and we cannot stop it but they must conform to all the rules and regulations, we must insist on that."

Railtrack have said they cannot design work on the proposed link until 2004 at the earliest.

A spokesman for UK Coal has told the BEN that moving coal by road is a sensible alternative which will not inconvenience local residents.

Bolton Council is seeking legal advice on the matter and local councillor Eric Hyland is organising a residents' meeting so local people can make their views known.