300 new Pendle jobs hope for 2014

The borough’s largest retail unit – Boundary Mill – has submitted plans to Pendle Council for a massive new garden centre.

The plan also includes a farm shop on land off Greenfield Road opposite its outlet at the end of the M65.

The application is expected to go before the council’s Colne and District Committee in the New Year – and if it is approved, it could lead to the creation of around 300 full and part-time jobs.

The development of the 10-acre site envisages a two-storey building with a floor space of 9,040 square metres – larger than the playing area of a football pitch – with a garden centre and external garden sales area at ground floor level.

The farm shop would be on the first floor.

Plans for the development show there would be a car park with 452 spaces for customer and staff cars as well as more than 50 others for motorbikes and cycles.

There would be a new roundabout accessing the site off Whitewalls Drive close to the motorway interchange.

Pendle Council leader Joe Cooney said the access was the major concern surrounding the application.

But he was sure that a satisfactory solution could be found.

“It is another good step forward for Colne,” he said.

Pendle MP Andrew Stephenson said: “Following the good news of falling unemployment in Pendle, there is the potential here for a significant number of new jobs and I hope that the council looks at this application seriously.”

Boundary Mill said all being well, the new garden centre would take 12 months to build and open by Easter of 2015.