UP to £350,000 is to be spent on a replacement for Stacksteads ambulance station -- named as the most poorly located depot in Lancashire.

Yet the controversy over what will be built on the site once the station is gone continues.

The Stacksteads station, Commercial Street, has been named in a survey for Lancashire Ambulance Service Trust as the number one priority station for relocation in the whole of Lancashire.

The Trust board have agreed that the building, which is a two-storey ex-Territorial Army barracks, is unsuitable and have allocated up to £350,000 in their 2003/04 budget for a new one.

John Calderbank, assistant chief executive for the Trust, said that access for ambulances from the station can be hindered in busy periods.

Mr Calderbank said that a location for a new station will be as near to the old site as possible and should be completed by March next year at the latest.

Meanwhile Burnley, Pendle and Rossendale Primary Care Trust want to house a new Stacksteads doctors' surgery on the site as health and safety regulations to be implemented next year will make the current Farholme Lane village surgery outdated.

But they were refused planning permission by Rossendale Borough Council in March.

The PCT have since appealed but doctors have said if a suitable site for their surgery is not found by June 6 they will re-locate to Bacup Health Centre. The ambulance station was first used as a station in the 1950s when it was purchased by Lancashire County Council, who then ran ambulance services in the county.

The station has one emergency vehicle there 24 hours a day with two crew on permanent standby and serves throughout the Rossendale Valley.

Mr Calderbank said: "We are currently exploring options for a suitable site in Stacksteads in reasonable proximity to the existing site but there will be re-development of the existing site if the PCT don't want it.

"It's larger than we require for an ambulance site and the location of Commercial Street is far from ideal as it can hinder exiting ambulances in busy times.

"If staff are on the first floor it takes time to go down and get the vehicles out."

Mr Calderbank said the moving of the ambulance site is not dependent on the PCT gaining permission to use the site and if they don't it will go on to the open market.

A spokesman for Burnley, Pendle and Rossendale Primary Care Trust said: "Originally the ambulance station was identified as a suitable surgery for the new doctors' surgery.

"However, Rossendale Borough Council refused planning permission. The PCT and the LIFT project have decided to appeal."