A company called Grayling Leisure are proposing the development of a 60 acre extreme sports village on Beacon Country Park. There are approximately 300 acres in the country park, part of which has already been developed into a golf course. As the Council website says: “There is space to walk, run, ride horses or bicycles, fly kites, or just get away from it all and relax at Beacon Country Park.” It’s a beautiful part of the district and is the only greenspace of it’s kind available to the public.

Grayling made a presentation this evening at the council offices in Ormskirk. I went along to listen after an invite from one of our District Councillors. The notice for the meeting didn’t say that it was only for District Councillors, but conservative Councillors refused to go ahead with the presentation until I was ejected from the council chamber.

Part of their justification was that even “the press” weren’t allowed to the meeting – I guess the implication is that if press aren’t allowed to view a presentation, then Parish Councillors are definitely excluded.

We currently have proposals on the table for over 200 new houses or flats to be built in Up Holland, which will grow the village by around 10%. This is at a time when there is a supposed “moratorium” on new development in the district.

People are already very concerned about the rapid growth of the village over the past couple of years, along with a lot of new houses just over the border in Orrell.

Yes, we need investment in the area, and yes, we should welcome an opportunity for new jobs and a development that might put the area on the map. But must this be done at the expense of the green space and countryside that adds so much to our quality of life?

This is only the first step in what is bound to be a very long process. But we aren’t going to get anywhere if meetings like the one tonight are held in a veil of secrecy.