WORK has started on a flagship regeneration project aimed at improving the quality of life in an area of Burnley.

And residents in the Accrington Road area of the town have welcomed the work as the start of a rejuvenation of the district.

Last week residents accused Burnley Council of abandoning the 'Homezone' project after it pulled back from plans to facelift 80 homes.

The Accrington Road Residents Association (ARRO) said it feared a government grant of £400,000 to transform part of Trinity could be wasted.

During a consultation period to secure funding for the project, Burnley Council said its proposals included £175,000 to be spent on face-lifting 80 houses in the Trinity area.

But the council has now said that because of soaring costs, that will not now happen unless they can find extra cash.

But this week diggers moved in to start work on improving street lighting in the area. And in the next few weeks residents will be asked to contribute to Neighbourhood Action Plans which will be used to put together bids for Elevate cash for south west Burnley, money which the council could use to pay for the face-lifting schemes.

The 'Elevate East Lancashire' partnership has a ten-year mission to regenerate neighbourhoods and deal with long-standing environmental problems.

East Lancashire is one of only nine areas in the country to be awarded 'Housing Pathfinder' status under the Government's £1bn plans to regenerate the UK's most deprived areas.

Trinity ward councillor Carole Galbraith said: "The residents will be very to see work has started. It will give them a morale boost and reassurance the project is under way and will hopefully progress."

The announcement Burnley was to be given the Homezone money by the Department of Transport was made in January 2002, but it has taken until now to start the regeneration work.

The creation of Home Zones was announced by the Prime Minister Tony Blair in April 2001, in a major speech about the quality and 'liveability' of our public spaces.

The key feature of the zones is to ensure that traffic is kept to very low speeds by design.

For existing streets this will usually mean re-paving with much wider pavements and possibly no kerbs.

Manchester was chosen as one of nine pilot areas for the Homezone initiative. Work on face-lifting 250 homes started in the same year funding became available.