PLANS for the regeneration of a former mining town received a major blow yesterday, when Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott pulled the plug on a multi-million pound housing development.
It ends a six-year row between developers and residents over proposals to build 169 houses at the Station Fields greenfield site, in Shield Row, Stanley, County Durham.
Derwentside District Council had approved the scheme and a planning inquiry recommended it should go ahead. But Mr Prescott's office said noise from the Tanfield Lea South Industrial Estate would ruin the quality of life for anyone living there.
District council leader Alex Watson, said: "I don't understand it at all. It is not good news for Stanley."
But residents opposed to the scheme were celebrating last night. Mary Finlaw, 79, said: "The access road they proposed was dangerous.
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