BARN owls like these may be encouraged to keep nesting between Accrington and Burnley after a move by highways chiefs to cut noise on the M65.

Works to lay a new, quieter surface on the M65 between the Huncoat and Burnley junctions began this week.

As well as cutting noise levels for local residents, Highways Agency bosses say the resurfacing work, which will cause two months of motorway delays, will help safeguard the future of barn owls in the area.

The owls are not the sole reason for the £2.6 million resurfacing project - the main reason is to maintain safety because parts of the road are breaking up.

The move to lay the new material, which halves tyre noise, came partly as a result of a letter sent to the agency by local landowner John Leitherd.

He wrote to them to express his concern about the impact of noise from the motorway on the barn owl population at the Castle Clough biological heritage site, Hapton.

John Lamb of the Lancashire Wildlife Trust said: "Barn owls need rough grassland in close proximity to where they are nesting. Because of changes in the countryside there is not the same amount of small mammals as there once was.

"The owls need safe areas of land in which to feed and they use their hearing to help catch their prey. If there is a motorway between the nest and where they are feeding they are likely to move away."

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