DEVELOPERS behind a £30million Blackburn town centre leisure scheme today revealed it would be another month before they can announce who will be moving on to the site.

Bosses at Manchester-based Peel Holdings said negotiations for the complex, which will include a 10-screen cinema, were at an advanced stage in June.

But the company have so far failed to confirm who will move into the 10-acre site between Blackburn Railway Station and the Matalan store in Lower Audley.

A spokesman today said negotiations were continuing and the company hoped to make an announcement about the cinema within four weeks.

No start date for work has been agreed, but the revamped development is expected to create more than 300 jobs.

The site could also include a bowling alley, fitness centre, restaurant or nightclub and negotiations are continuing with other firms about the smaller leisure uses on the site.

Peel -- which developed Blackburn Ice Arena and also owns Liverpool Airport and the Trafford Centre in Manchester -- was first granted planning permission for a leisure and retail development in 1998.

Much of the site used to be the Clayton Goodfellow Ironworks.

In March this year, phase one of the project opened, the retail side of the development.

Discount clothes shop Matalan and office supplies store Staples have both moved on to the site.

The retail phase was estimated to have cost £15million.

Although Peel has always said it was trying to get a cinema operator, it has always refused to confirm it was its only plan for the site.

Its planning permission stated 'leisure use' which could include anything from a fitness centre to a nightclub.

Peel has refused to say who it is negotiating with, though the firm already deals with several chains, including UCI, which runs one of the country's largest cinema multiplexes within Peel's flagship Trafford Centre.

Coun Andy Kay, in charge of regeneration, has welcomed the proposed development, as have traders in the town.