A REAL boost for East Lancashire's economy is promised by the £15million plan to create a state-of-the-art science park. That is because the exciting Medi-Park project, which hopes to attract science, medical and bio-tech businesses to the site alongside Blackburn's new super hospital at Queen's Park, is about much more than generating new jobs.

For although 125 of them are expected to be created initially -- and the hopes are that hundreds more will follow as the science park expands -- the venture promises to create a centre of excellence for medical firms.

And that means a new pool of sought-after skills being established in East Lancashire, together with much-needed diversification of its employment base, a wider choice of jobs and greater stability for the region's economy.

For too long, it has been heavily dependent on manufacturing and so rendered more liable to job losses and contraction during downturn in that sector. Expansion of service businesses in the past two decades has offset some of this vulnerability and strong efforts are being made to increase the commercial and office-skills sector. But the type of work and jobs created by the Medi-Park would add exciting scope and variation that would make East Lancashire still more recession-proof, raise wage levels, increase spending power and add to the region's general prosperity.

It is an imaginative concept and yet another of Blackburn with Darwen Council's forward-thinking initiative aimed at progressing the region, both through town-centre regeneration and exploitation of the M65 corridor as the location for new business.

Already, Blackburn has seen huge expansion of its business parks in the years since the extension of the route to the main motorway network and the targeting of the M65-adjacent Queen's Park site for this new venture promises to add to its potential for a swift take-off.

The Medi-Park promises to give East Lancashire still more confidence in its future.