IMPROVED rail and road links are essential to East Lancashire playing a proper role in the Northern Powerhouse initiative, a new study has found.

A long-debated extension to the M65 and the restoration of the Colne to Skipton rail line are both back on the table after the publication of the Transport for Lancashire review.

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An MP and senior councillors are now redoubling their efforts to upgrade links between Lancashire and Yorkshire and help generate tens of thousands of jobs and homes between Blackburn, Burnley and Bradford over the next decade.

Campaigners from SELRAP (Skipton East Lancashire Rail Partnership) have continued to press for the track restoration but the proposed M65 bypass around Foulridge and Barrowford and other efforts to extend the key route have stalled.

The Lancashire Telegraph also revealed last year that the prospect of widening parts of the M65 between junctions two and six was under discussion.

Martin Kelly, the county's council director of economic development, said: "There is no east-west link in the strategic road network and the recent focus has been on HS2 and Northern Powerhouse's in the core cities and the M62 corridor to the south.

"Without intervention, the corridor will not reach its potential to deliver against Transport for the North's transformational growth scenario, as set out within the Northern Powerhouse' independent economic review.

"There is an identified need to invest in both road and rail infrastructure at strategic and local levels."

Pendle MP Andrew Stephenson has raised the report's finding in the House of Commons during a questions sessions with ministers.

Mr Stephenson said: "The report finds that taking steps such as reopening the Skipton to Colne rail route would boost economic prosperity across the north, but that a failure to improve connectivity from east to west would 'critically restrict the growth potential of the Pennine Corridor economy—a key driver of the Northern Powerhouse'."

Paul Maynard, Transport Minister and Blackpool North MP, said: "My honourable friend is entirely correct to point to the importance of trans-Pennine links, be they road or rail.

"I am very familiar, as I am sure he is, with the Skipton to Colne campaign and the Skipton East Lancashire Rail Action Partnership. I wish it well, and I hope that it features strongly on all the local growth fund bids that come in to the department."

Hyndburn and Haslingden MP Graham Jones, supported by Burnley MP Julie Cooper, has previously lodged an Early Day Motion on the state of east-west rail and road infrastructure and its connection with the Northern Powerhouse.

His motion criticised the "continued lack of transport infrastructure serving West Yorkshire, North Yorkshire and East Lancashire" while promoting the extension of the M65 from Colne to East Leeds and rail links between the city and Burnley and Accrington.

Mr Jones said: "The links would provide a jobs bonanza for East Lancashire.

"This is the big Northern Powerhouse project, nothing is bigger than this.

"There should be road links between the east and west, particularly links to the North East and the A1.

"By also getting rail connections it would transform this area.

"We would pick up millions of commuters and companies would bring jobs through East Lancashire."

County Cllr Clare Pritchard (Accrington North) also had a Lancashire County Council motion adopted along similar lines, as "East Lancashire communities are among the most deprived in the UK and the economic and social impacts of improved transport links would support those communities, and industry and businesses across the whole of the north".

Cllr Noordad Aziz, who represents Netherwood ward in Great Harwood on Hyndburn Council, is adamant the M65 extension should figure in future long-term road planning.

He said: "We need to galvanise on this and to get a firm commitment for any M65 extension to be part of RIS 2 (Road Investment Scheme 2) post 2020."

The east-west connectivity review will be used by Transport for Lancashire, which is overseen by the Lancashire Enterprise Partnership, as initial evidence to persuade Transport for North of the need for major investment in rail and road overhauls.