AN ambitious hit list has been drawn up to tackle East Lancashire's major problems with targets including dramatically increasing wage levels and planting millions of trees.

Initiatives to encourage entrepreneurs, attract more tourism, improve the quality of housing and help people live longer have also been unveiled.

The draft action plan is the culmination of months of work by East Lancashire Partnership in its bid to come up with a strategy to transform East Lancashire over the next 20 years.

Once it is agreed the partnership will start working on an action plan and try and attract funding for major initiatives.

More than 300 people, including council leaders, health chiefs and business leaders, attended the 'Achieving our Vision' conference - the third to be held to discuss the Partnership's work to ensure that East Lancashire living standards and facilities rival that of European cities of similar populations by the year 2020.

Opening the conference at the Dunkenhalgh Hotel, vice-chairman John Calway stressed that East Lancashire was an area with many serious problems such as poor housing and health.

And he said the key to the success of all the partnership's aims was the strength of the economy and the need to address the area's dependence on low paid and low skill jobs. "If we are not successful in that we shall struggle to make serious inroads into everything else."

He pointed out that a third of the East Lancashire workforce had no qualifications, average earnings locally were 10 per cent below the national average with pay among the ethnic community more than 30 per cent below the national average.

The need for radical action to combat East Lancashire's housing problems was also highlighted.

Government minister Hilary Armstrong said she was acutely aware of the problems of housing in East Lancashire - an area she said was dominated by "large pre-war terraced housing for which there is little or no demand".

Comments on the action plan and further details on the Partnership's vision are available on its new website at www.elp.org.uk

Picture shows, from the left, John Tilley, East Lancashire Partnership, BBC broadcaster Martin Henfield, Kath Belton, principal of Nelson & Colne College, John Calway, Partnership vice-chairman, Roger Ellis, chief executive Burnley Council, Mike Shields, chief executive NW Development Agency, Barbara Booth, head teacher Shadsworth County Infants School, Phil Watson, chief executive Blackburn with Darwen Council.