LEIGH could soon be at the centre of a horse racing mecca with plans for an all year round race course at the heart of a 2,000 acre leisure scheme.

A new Manchester race course - on the edge of Journaland bordering Astley and Boothstown - is included in plans submitted to Salford Council for a forest park spanning 700 hectares.

Already race fans have Haydock Park on their doorstep and the move to include a new racing venue at the heart of the Salford Forest Park leisure project would provide more top class facilities almost alongside the East Lancashire Road.

Peel Holdings, one of Britain's leading property and transport companies with assets valued at £1,700 million - including The Manchester Ship Canal Company, The Trafford Centre, Liverpool and Finningley airports - has now submitted a planning application for the scheme.

Access to the Park and racecourse - planned to attract 20,000 spectators to major events - is via a route from the East Lancashire Road at the Queen's traffic lights at Boothstown at a point where the applicants recently installed the first phase of what they described as an 'agricultural access' road.

A planning application for the Green Belt site incorporates a range of leisure and countryside activities. The aim is to extend the existing Botany Bay woodland by almost a quarter of its present size.

The race course would be at the heart of the project - providing facilities in the Manchester area which have been missing since the city course closed on November 7 1963. The proposed replacement would be an all-season operation catering for over the jumps and flat racing on grass and all-weather tracks.

A grandstand with a capacity for 6,000 spectators is included in the scheme and proposed to be sited on the course's top western bend - east of Cooper's Cottage. For the big events temporary stands would boost capacity to 20,000.

Other proposals are an equestrian centre with stabling for 100 horses based at Malkins Wood Farm, a luxury four star hotel developed around Moss House Farm, a golf

course, club house and driving range, woodland trails, and an eco village.

Plans include a woodland visitor centre and a high level woodland walk to give visitors a birds' eye view of the biggest woodland in Greater Manchester. Botany Bay Wood - formerly part of the Earl of Ellesmere's sporting estate - is owned by Peel Holdings but was recently brought under Red Rose Forest management.

Specialist ecologists have carried out detailed surveys over the past two years and they say further surveys are planned.

A Peel spokesman: "It will be more than just a magnificent race course. It will provide opportunities for various recreational, sporting and leisure activities in harmony with nature. The link between racing, horses, the country and wildlife will form a common theme throughout the park."