AS East Lancashire still suffers the shockwaves of more than 1,600 jobs going in just one week, the prospect of adversity being turned to advantage was being looked for in Hyndburn today where 550 workers are among those now facing the dole.

For the announcement of the closure of the Leoni Wiring factory in Accrington -- the town's biggest employer -- comes hard on the heels of Hyndburn Council's multi-million-pound bid for Single Regeneration Budget cash from the government.

And the shock shutdown's effect of rocketing the borough's unemployment levels by 50 per cent has crystallised the council's case and the need for the money and the boost it would give to efforts to improve the area and attract new businesses.

Just how effective this sort of help can be is evident from the impact of the £3.8million Hyndburn got in the first round of SRB grants. It was used to regenerate Accrington's giant, old Platt Saco Lowell textile machinery works as the Globe Centre -- a site that now employs 1,000 and which has attracted more than £30million of investment from the private sector.

Now as bids for the sixth round of grants are gathered, Hyndburn is asking and hoping for a lot more and is encouraged by the perverse logic that, as its economy is made worse by this crippling blow at Leoni, its chances of getting extra economic aid could suddenly be a lot better.

Realistically, though, this amounts at this stage to speculation even if the rationale is valid. But it is vital that the government is made well aware that East Lancashire's case for massively improved regional aid for new jobs and investment is now beyond all doubt -- and our councils, MPs and enterprise organisations should now be relentlessly ramming that message at Whitehall.