FURIOUS residents have vowed to fight on in a bid to halt the 'Swanley Armada'. Despite protests about a plan to create a marina for more than 300 boats on the Llangollen arm of the Shropshire Union Canal, they have heard this week that it is poised to go ahead. It is earmarked for a site on the canal between Swanley and Burland, just outside Nantwich, and plans include an office, additional buildings, and car parking and turning areas. When the planning application for the marina was submitted in January, residents sent in strong protests to Crewe and Nantwich Borough Council. But the council's development control panel, which meets next Tuesday, is being recommended to approve it. Jean Cergnul, who lives nearby in Shores Lane, Burland, is leading the protests. He said yesterday: 'Is this democracy? The council knows of our objections to the scheme, yet they are planning to go ahead. There are some very angry people around here.' His wife Janet added: 'We will not be giving up without a fight.' Another resident, Andrew Ozard, who bought a house nearby just weeks before the plan was first mooted, said: 'I would not have bought the property here if I had known that the character of the area was going to be completely changed.' In their protests to the council the residents say they are worried about the impact on the rural environment. They also consider that the access to the site would be hazardous on a road listed by the AA as one of the most dangerous in the UK. But Michael Cope, of Swanley Hall, who has submitted the planning application, said that the last thing he wants to do is spoil the rural aspect of the area. He said: 'We live here as well, so we don't want to spoil the environment. 'The fact is that British Waterways are desperate to create more marinas so that there is less in-line boat mooring on the canals. As farmers, we are told these days that we should diversify and this is what we are attempting to do, though we will be retaining our dairy farm.' Council planning officer Alan Millington, in advising councillors to pass the plan, said concerns about noise, disturbance, lighting, pollution and litter had been noted. But he added that in his view none of the residents' houses were close enough to the development site to be adversely affected. | 
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