HEAVY rain has delayed the completion of a major river clean-up scheme in Rossendale by six months.

The River Irwell was highlighted in a national survey by the Environment Agency as the fourth most polluted in the country.

The pollution is coming from Old Meadows Mine off Burnley Road, Broadclough, Bacup, which was last worked in 1897. Iron is leaking from the abandoned mine workings and affecting a stretch of about a three-mile of river which runs bright orange.

The Coal Authority devised a £900,000 scheme to clean the water using a pumping station to transfer the water to settlement ponds and then through reed beds and a wetland area to be treated before returning to the river

It was hoped the work would be complete in September but heavy rain has delayed the engineering works and a spokesman said today the company was looking at completing the project in March. He said: "We have five such projects already operational and others still under construction.

"Old Meadows is the largest project the Coal Authority has been solely responsible for although we were a partner in a larger scheme. It will be our Rolls Royce because of the scale of the problem, the cost and the feat of engineering it has been to get the work done on such a steep slope."

Currently the site has mesh bales filled with stones to hold back the soil on the steep bank. Although these will not be covered, the spokesman assured residents the site will be landscaped and it will blend in with the surroundings.

Once the work is complete there will be ongoing operational costs which will be met by the authority. An official opening of the site is planned for the summer.

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