BOSSES are confident that proposals for East Lancashire’s first £6million eco-friendly business park will be given the go-ahead now a revised planning application has been submitted.

Prospects, a Hyndburn environmental charity, first proposed plans for an Environmental Business Park a year ago but withdrew the application in March after worries about access to the Oswaldtwistle site.

The revised plans include widening the access road, acceptable resurfacing and traffic calming measures.

If granted, the construction of an industrial plant, which includes four eco houses, a bio-mass heating plant, a timber yard and four 45ft-high wind turbines, could be up and running in two years.

The site in Coach Road Meadow, an 11-acre site on the edge of Oswaldtwistle and Church, would be transformed into an environmentally-friendly site aimed at attracting small and medium-sized businesses, which would be housed in a collection of small 3,000 sq ft units.

Phil Barwood, chairman of Prospects, said they were yet to secure funding for the build but revealed they would look to European Funding, the North West Regional Development Agency and private funds.

Mr Barwood, who said planning permission would help its funding bid, hopes the site will become a beacon to other businesses in the country after research revealed there are very few such developments in the country.

The development will be run as a not-for-private-profit social enterprise, the income from tenancies being used to support the core costs of the charity’s work.

Mr Barwood said: “The application had to be withdrawn in March because of difficulties that needed resolving around the access to the site.

“We have used consultants and have worked with Lancashire County Council to make acceptable changes.

“The access details were the only difficulty on the application.

"We would like this development to be a beacon to others.”