In fact, its planning and development committee is in the midst of formulating a new development framework and has recently received a major report, from its own consultants, confirming we are going to need a further 9,000 homes over the next 20 years.

It will mean building two new homes for every five that exist today and is bound to lead to much controversy.

It is therefore nice to know there is one element in the new framework that will cause no controversy at all. These days, more or less everyone is agreed we have to do our best to reduce our reliance on the motor car.

Some people favour that policy because they worry about global warming and others because they worry about relying on the importation of fuel from unstable parts of the world.

Some people even worry oil will soon run out altogether. At any event, it is pretty much common ground that railways must play an increasing part in our future and the council will be paying a lot of attention to the development of the Ribble Valley railway.

This is already a very successful and growing service and it is a widely known secret the capacity of the line is to be increased and more and faster trains will soon be carried.

Railway folk are busily considering the prospects of reopening stations at Chatburn and Gisburn and there are proposals in the air to develop new ones at Henthorn and Barrow.

Railway activists are trying to persuade the county council to change their emphasis from providing school buses to providing season tickets on the train and this has the potential to create a whole new generation of people for whom catching the train comes as naturally as jumping in the car.

It is a long time since railways dominated local government thinking, but I feel sure they are now at the top of the agenda of our local councillors and just about all of the new development they propose will be in walking distance of a station.

For my part, the new stations cannot come a moment too soon.

Almost the most ghastly feature of modern life is the way parents have been turned into mere taxi drivers for their children, ferrying them hither and yon instead of concentrating on contemplative exercises like sitting in an arm chair, drinking a glass of beer and reading the Clitheroe Advertiser.

Who knows? The train may even make the Valley more sociable.

I have never made a new friend sitting in my car, but two of my most important friendships originated in chance encounters on a crowded commuter train.

e-mail: thecontrarian@hotmail.co.uk