PROPOSALS for a controversial opencast site have been rejected.

Durham County Council received more than 80 objections to plans to extract brickshale and coal from a site at Wheatley Hill, West Rainton.

After a site visit yesterday, members of the planning committee turned down the application, by Clay Services and the Ibstock Brick Company.

The extraction would have taken place over five years, after which time the site would have been restored.

Chester-le-Street District Council, along with West Rainton, Great Lumley and Little Lumley parish councils, opposed the scheme, as did the residents of nearby villages.

Most of the objections were on the grounds that the works would increase traffic in the area, leading to problems with noise and road safety.

During the past 15 years, there have been opencast works on various sites in the area.

Some objectors, including West Rainton Parish Council, said they did not want any further opencast activity.

At yesterday's meeting, Lumley ward councillor Brian Walker said that although the operators had agreed to re-route traffic to avoid passing through Burnmoor, he still objected to the proposals.

"We are talking about a vehicle passing every five minutes - some maybe 40-tonne articulated lorries," he said.

"The people who live here have had to put up with dust and vibration for 15 years. It's about time those people had some respite."

Other councillors expressed concerns about the possibility of lorries taking shortcuts through West Rainton.

The site did not feature in the Minerals Local Plan.

Councillor Brian Henderson said: "The purpose of a plan to me is to let people know what is going to happen in the future.

"They have just built 250 to 300 houses in this road, and those people could now find they have lorries coming past their door, and an opencast at the back.

"That to me is diabolical and, if we go ahead with this, the plan becomes a nonsense."