BURNLEY'S most outstanding landmark - the former Keirby Hotel - could be demolished to make way for a new bus station.

Council officers presented proposals for the bus station site which included building a new hotel, several new shops, pedestrianising Croft Street and relocating the bus station to a small section of the site.

Coun John Greenwood suggested instead that they look at pulling down the Comfort Hotel - still known locally as the Keirby - and using its site as a new base for the bus station.

After the meeting he said: "I understand the hotel's owner is very interested in looking to develop a new upgraded hotel with underground car park and leisure facility and if that happened it would leave the way open for the existing hotel to be demolished and possibly the bus station to be relocated."

Coun Stephen Large told officers: "We have to consider whether the bus station is in the right place?"

And Coun Les Harrison added: "If we must pull the Keirby down and put the bus station there then it is a feasible plan."

Council officers stressed the need for upgrading of the bus station describing the existing provision as "life expired", "unattractive", "tatty" and "not a very good image to people coming to Burnley."

Members of three council committees were at the meeting when plans for the development of the town centre were outlined. Coun Greenwood called for the town to push to attract a department store, but Coun Peter Kenyon questioned whether that dream was a realistic idea.

"We do have Living and that seems to me to be losing viability rather than improving it," he said. "We have an acknowledged low pay problem - is there really a sufficient market for a department store to be interested in?"

Other plans outlined included using part of Clock Tower Mill, Sandygate, as a Salvation Army project, which would provide accommodation and training for young single people and negotiating with Bellway homes, developers of the former Marsden Hospital site, to look at a possible housing scheme in that area.

But Coun Greenwood stressed that if another plan for Clock Tower Mill failed, the time had come for an application to be made to knock it down.

Highways officer Dave Wood told councillors: "The Westgate link in its old form will never take place because the finance will not be available."The council has £2.1m of European cash to spend on various developments in the town centre but councillors were told of the need to look at proposals carefully to ensure matched funding was available.

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