PLANS to build a new multi-million pound business and recreation park on the border of Blackburn and Hyndburn were shown off for the first time yesterday.

Last week, the Lancashire Telegraph revealed how as many of 2,000 skilled workers could be hired to work on the new 98,000 square metre mixed-use development.

MORE TOP STORIES:

New details on the proposals were shown off at the Red Lion pub, in Whitebirk Road, Blackburn, while the public was also invited to give their opinions on the estate, which will run adjacent to junction six of the M65 motorway on a 36-hectare site, beside the old Mother Redcap pub in Blackburn Road, Intack.

To the north of the site, a 65-bedroom Travelodge hotel will be built, opposite smaller commercial units, believed to be planned as a coffee shop with a drive-through, and a pub.

A pond is also planned to house surface water and provide a habitat for amphibians.

A huge 473,830 sqft warehouse and office building is planned to the west of the site, opposite three units measuring 102,320 sqft, 212,830 sqft, and 202,830 sqft.

A 60-metre-wide ‘landscape buffer’ will be created with the planting of hedgerows and trees around the edge of the site, while a green avenue of trees between the large warehouse and the three smaller ones to ‘soften their appearance’, the public was told.

As many as 400 of the 2,000 jobs will be office-based or service jobs, it was also revealed.

Director and head of asset management at site owner Praxis, Gabriel McLaughlin, said: “Against the backdrop of a tough economic environment, we are developing plans for a mixed employment development site that will act as a major boost to the local economy with the creation of 2,000 jobs of significant benefit to the local community.

“We are keen to ensure the local community has the opportunity to comment on the scheme and to help develop something we’re all proud of and that fulfil our objectives of attracting inward investment and creating a range of jobs for the area.”

Over the next month, the company will be carrying out an ecological survey, before a planning application is submitted in July.

Praxis hopes to be on site carrying out groundwork, which will take around nine months, by December.

It will start work on the large warehouse in September 2016, ready for it to be occupied in 2017.

The other three buildings will be built ‘subject to demand’, although they are expected to be completed by 2021.

The proposed plans for the site that were on show at the Red Lion pub in Blackburn were to show people how it may look.