PLANS for a £20million hotel and office complex at the "gateway to Colne" look set to be revitalised.

An action plan set out by Lancashire Economic Partnership lists investment of £51million between now and 2009 for land off junction 13 of the M65.

The money is to be spent on a retail, office and hotel complex.

Building work is already under way on the retail part of the plan - the £30 million new Boundary Mill store and restaurant off Vivary Way.

But RB Holdings, the firm behind Boundary Mill, also owns land on the opposite side of Vivary Way, off Greenfield Road, where outline planning permission for a hotel was granted three years ago.

This permission is due to expire within a few weeks. And now that the hotel proposal is included in the partnership's action plan, an application is expected to be made to renew that planning permission.

Town centre shopkeepers said they would continue to support the idea, hoping it would bring more jobs and visitors to Colne. Graham Wharton, chairman of the town centre partnership, said: "I don't see that it can do any harm and Pendle is in need of a good hotel.

"We haven't got one in either Colne or Nelson, so I think it can only really be a good thing, and from my point of view it's much better than more out-of-town shops."

Figures for 2005, the most recent available, show that Pendle has a strong tourism industry, with more than 2.5 million visitors per year, spending around £75 million annually.

But neighbours who comp-lained over extra traffic pressures when the new store was in the pipeline said they would have the same concerns over hotels and offices. Helen Foster, of Greenfield Road, said: "We have been keeping an eye on the site for a long time, and we know they are intending doing some-thing there eventually, but we are obviously not very happy.

"Ultimately it depends on what kind of hotel it's going to be but to add more traffic to the situation already at Vivary Way just seems sheer stupidity."

Richard Bannister, owner of Boundary Mill Stores and RB Holdings, was unavailable for comment, but a spokesman for the company said that bosses would be looking at the potential hotel site again when the store was finished later this year.