AN AMBITIOUS plan to create a £600,000 community centre to serve two of the poorest wards in Pendle has been unveiled.

Waterbridge Community Association, which was set up to drive the project forward, has applied for planning permission to convert the former Sacred Heart RC School building, Rigby Street, Colne, into a community base housing a Citizens Advice Bureau, food co-op, credit union, children's nursery, training rooms and offices.

The base will be the centrepiece for the Community Economic Development (CED) project in Waterside and Vivary Bridge wards of the town, a European initiative aimed at providing cash to regenerate communities that suffer high unemployment and other social problems.

The scheme will be split into two phases with conversion work on the interior of the building planned to start around the end of the year.

The first phase involving internal reconstruction and costing £350,000 will cover the ground and first floors of the building which will be leased from the Church.

The cost will be met by bids for cash help from the European Regional Development Fund and Single Regeneration Budget.

The second phase costing £250,000 will be met from a National Lottery bid and cover external work such as providing disabled access, re-roofing the building and installing double glazing.

John Beck, secretary of the Waterbridge Community Association, said: "This will probably be the premier project for the CED. "While the centre will be primarily for people in Waterside and Vivary Bridge, it will be open to everyone in Colne. It is a very important project for Colne.

"We've spent a lot of money on preparing reports to get it to this stage. The paperwork has to be in for August 5. It is a complicated process."

The association has worked closely with Community Technical Aid Lancashire, a set of architects that work with community groups, and with the groups that will eventually use the centre.

Mr Beck said interior work was expected to take between two and three months. "Much of the building needs work doing on it because it's in a poor state," he explained. "It needs re-wiring and re-plumbing; you name it, it needs it doing."

The planning application is due to be discussed by Pendle Council's Colne area committee on September 2.

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