ACCRINGTON’S new market hall will be the first town centre in Lancashire to house special facilities for profoundly disabled people.

Hyndburn Borough Council’s champion for the disabled, Coun Malcolm Pritchard said if the new, £25,000 toilet and changing facility was well received the idea could be rolled out across the county.

The changing facility will feature a toilet with a hoist to lift people out of wheel chairs, and a specially adapted shower, and a bed.

Similar facilities are available at St Peter’s Sports Centre, Burnley, and the bus station in Burnley, but the Milnshaw ward councillor, who is also a county councillor, said town centre facilities were essential.

He said: “One resident I represent had a stroke at 25 and she can’t go shopping.

“She is a prisoner in her own home, because if you need a hoist to get out of your wheelchair, you can’t use ordinary disabled toilets and leaving the house can be an uphill battle.

"This will be the first one in the county in a town centre and it will make an enormous difference to people’s lives.

"I hope to use this example to push for a whole number of changing places across the entire county.”

Plans to regenerate the market hall were brought forward a year when Hyndburn Council agreed to spend £500,000 of external funding in the current financial year, rather than waiting until 2009 to 2010.

The project, which will cost £2million, will see the trad-ing hall revitalised and the first floor of the building brought back into use.