PLANS to create a cycling track at a site in Nelson have moved a step closer after plans were submitted.

The £300,000 scheme to create the track at Swinden Playing Fields was unveiled last year, with £150,000 in funding for the initiative secured from Sports England’s Inspired Facilities programme.

The facility will bear the name of Colne’s Olympic champion, Steven Burke, and will be called the Steven Burke Sports Hub.

This week a planning application to build the 1.2km track on currently grassed land adjacent to the football and cricket pitches was submitted.

The track will include 41 six-metre high lighting columns installed to British Cycling specification.

Steven, nicknamed the Colne Cyclone following his exploits in the velodrome at the London 2012 games, said: “The hub will be fantastic for Pendle and for getting boys and girls into cycling. It’s a great sport that will stay with them for life.”

The scheme will also include refurbishment of changing facilities at the playing fields.

A spokesman for Cycle Sport Pendle, which is also involved in the scheme, said: “Cycle Sport Pendle has been offered stewardship of the new facility based on our demonstration over the last four years of sustained and sustainable growth of cycling in Pendle.

“As a club we are now accepted as a shining example of what a modern cycling club should look like.

“Working closely with the sport’s governing body British Cycling, we have seen the number of children attending club coaching sessions grow from a handful to almost 100.”