UP to £65m is set to be invested in health care schemes in East Lancashire as part of a massive new project aimed at improving facilities.

The LIFT scheme will see new health care centres in Bacup, Nelson and Burnley as well as projects in Darwen and Accrington. The LIFT (Local Improvement Finance Trusts) project has been set up to improve primary and community health care facilities.

The scheme is a private finance initiative aimed at improving facilities and the delivery of health care across the region.

One private firm will be chosen to pay for developing the new centres and to manage them for the next 25 years in return for being paid rent by the Primary Care Trust. At the end of the period the contract can be renewed or the facility can be bought back by the health trust.

More than 22 private firms have already expressed an interest in signing up for the project which would see the start of development on the new health facilities by September 2003.

The Burnley, Pendle and Rossendale Primary Care Trust has already earmarked more than £7.5m of investment which will be used to buy land ready for the developments.

Steven Hartley, the project director for the LIFT scheme, said: "The scheme is essentially a private finance initiative aimed at providing investment for new health centres.

"We are working very hard to identify sites and buy land so that when we have chosen a private firm to build and run the centres, we will be ready to start."