CONTROVERSIAL plans are being considered to extend a highly successful Pendle business park into neighbouring green belt fields to provide essential extra space for industry.

The proposed move to almost double the size original of Lomeshaye Industrial Estate, Nelson, by extending it up the hillside to the Barrowford-Padiham by-pass is expected to raise a storm of protest.

But councillors will be told this week that the move is needed to create extra industrial land or Pendle will face losing hundreds of jobs as firms move out of the borough to alternative sites with room for expansion.

The meeting comes just days after two major East Lancashire employers -- Airtours of Helmshore and SSL of Blackburn -- announced plans to move hundreds of jobs out of area because they said they couldn't find suitable premises in East Lancashire for their expansion plans.

Pendle Council's policy committee will be asked on Thursday to agree spending £7,000 on surveys to judge the impact of the proposed 40-acre extension on traffic and the environment.

A major consultation will also be launched to gauge people's views on the scheme.

Plans for the extension show the existing Churchill Way estate access road being extended through fields up to a proposed roundabout on the by-pass, opening up the whole hillside to development and encroaching further towards the picturesque Pendleside villages of Wheatley Lane and Fence.

The council's development director Janet Bradbury admits in a report to the committee: "Local opposition to the proposal is inevitable and the site must be subject to full public consultation to give local people the opportunity to make their views known."

Any extension plans would have to be agreed by deputy Prime Minister John Prescott as head of the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions, and the whole process of gaining permission could take up to two years.

The proposed move is being fired by demand from local firms for extra space to expand. "If their needs cannot be met it is likely they will move out of Pendle with the consequent loss of jobs for local people," said Mrs Bradbury. "This will have a knock-on effect on other local businesses."

Pressure on industrial land throughout East Lancashire is high. Three quarters of the Shuttleworth Meads complex on the site of the former Padiham power station is already under offer and Network 65 in Burnley has just four acres of land left.