MASSIVE grants will help East Lancashire businesses in their fight back against cuts and jobs losses .

Yesterday's Government announcement that £120million of regeneration money will be winging its way to the area was accompanied by the news that East Lancashire's six districts have also won Assisted Area Status.

Industries battered by job losses will get crucial cash assistance to secure employment opportunities and increase East Lancashire's prosperity.

Thousands of jobs will be created across the area and thousands of others safeguarded as businesses are given incentives to move to and stay in East Lancashire.

Only Blackburn had experienced the benefits of this status prior to yesterday's announcement.

Council and business leaders put in a bid for Blackburn to retain that status and for the town to be joined by the other five districts of East Lancashire, Pendle, Burnley, Hyndburn, Ribble Valley and Rossendale.

And when the business and council partnerships which submitted the bids to the government met in Nelson the day after the announcement there was much to celebrate.

There had been fears the bid would not be accepted because, despite job losses, unemployment in the area is not as high as it is elsewhere in the country. Local MPs lobbied the Department of Trade and Industry long and hard to put East Lancashire's case across.

In Burnley, Barclay, Calder, Daneshouse, Deerplay, Hapton, Heasandford, Lowerhouse, Park and Trinity wards will see business helped along with Simonstone in the Ribble Valley.

Rossendale's Cribden, Greenfield, Helmshore and Worsley wards will also get help along with Altham, Clayton-le-Moors and Huncoat in Hyndburn.

In Blackburn and Darwen, the Bank Top, Brookhouse, Brownhill, Cathedral, Earcroft, Ewood, Green Bank, Highercroft, Marsh House, Mill Hill, Moorgate, North Turton, Pleckgate, Queen's Park, Revidge, Shadsworth, Sudell, Sunnyhurst, West Rural and Tockholes wards will benefit.

Pendle has won a different kind of Assisted Area Status which will see small and medium-sized businesses especially targeted.

Pendle MP Gordon Prentice, who led a Parliamentary delegation to press ministers for assisted area status for East Lancashire, welcomed Pendle's SRB bid successes.

He said everybody who took part in the bid should be congratulated for their efforts.

North West Regional Development Agency board member Dennis Mendoros who announced the East Lancashire SRB successes at a special meeting in Nelson said he hoped the results would encourage other towns to bid in the future.

Pendle businessman Mr Mendoros said that while East Lancashire had taken the lion's share of awards in Lancashire, it had done so strictly on merit and in view of the area's special needs. Hyndburn MP Greg Pope said: "This is the best news for Hyndburn in years.

"Assisted Area Status was taken off us by the previous Conservative administration and now it has been given back by the Labour Government.

" This will specifically help areas like Huncoat which missed out on Single Regeneration Budget money.

"It's been a long, hard bidding process and I'm delighted we've been successful."

Coun Andy Kay, chairman of Blackburn with Darwen Council's regeneration committee has been at the forefront of the town's bid to retain Assisted Area Status.

He said: "Business and commerce needs help and support in any way we can get it. Over the next seven years we can expect grants in the order of £7million, private sector investment of up to £70million and 3,000 jobs created."

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