A NEW training complex for Burnley FC has been initially agreed – after a ‘significant’ compensation package was cleared to offset the harm caused to wintering birds at Gawthorpe.

Clarets bosses had appealed to councillors that new indoor pitches and training facilities were vital to securing top-grade youth players, even though their base is in the middle of the green belt.

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But fears over the effect on snipes, and the rarer jack snipes, voiced by the RSPB and Ribble Rivers Trust were overcome after club chiefs offered up a legal agreement to provide an alternative habitat along the River Calder corridor.

Burnley FC had applied for the new centre, which also includes a match analysis suite, medical room, players and guests lounges and offices, so that its youth teams, under FA rules, can compete against higher league opposition.

Doug Metcalfe, the club’s operations manager, said that the current facilities at Gawthorpe, provided through a series of temporary buildings, were ‘cramped, run-down and piecemeal’.

“This will provide us with one of the best youth facilities in the country,” he added.

But Cllr Cosima Towneley said: “We have few sites in Burnley which are nationally recognised for their ecology. If this was to do with anything other than football it would not be allowed.”

Former mayor and deputy council leader Cllr John Harbour insisted that the compensation package should be spent in the Padiham area, rather than diverted to environmental projects in the Ribble Valley.