A SCHOOL on green belt land is planning a £2million development which business leaders have hailed as a prospective boost to East Lancashire's sparse conference facilities.

Independent Westholme School in Blackburn wants to build a new sixth-form centre to cope with an increasing number of students who want to take A and AS-level courses. There are 170 students in the sixth-form, compared with 115 three years ago.

The school's planning application to Blackburn with Darwen Council for a new Curriculum 2000 Sixth-Form Centre, as it will be known, includes designs for a lecture theatre, a conference room and a sixth form study room.

It would also incorporate four tutorial rooms, five classrooms and a common room.

Michael Damms, chief executive of the East Lancashire Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said: "We welcome the development, which will provide excellent conference facilities which can be used by local industry and business.

"The area is very short of facilities like this for business."

Westholme headteacher Lillian Croston said: "The sixth-form has expanded and students now take more subjects , so more teaching space is needed." The sixth-form centre will be built close to the library and open-access computer suites.

Westholme -- named last year in a Sunday Times survey as one of the top 100 performing independent schools in the country -- is in a green belt area in Meins Road.

Mrs Croston said: "The school is mindful of the sensitivity of the site in the open countryside and the green belt. It has a beautiful location and the new development has been designed to harmonise with existing buildings and with its surroundings."

In recent years the 1,100-pupil school has expanded into a large complex of buildings, recreational facilities and car and coach parks -- threequarters of pupils travel by bus.

"The scale of the existing development and investment does not allow us the option to relocate elsewhere in the district," Mrs Croston said.

"Westholme is a Blackburn success story and it is important it continues to develop to meet its students' educational needs."

In 1997 the Westholme Theatre was opened and is used by the Blackburn Symphony Orchestra, Rotary, brownies, guides, scouts and a dance school.

It also features concerts by internationally-known musicians.