PLANS to build hundreds of new homes in Huncoat are moving closer to fruition.

The owners of a former mill sites have been approached about plans to build 500 properties in the area, council documents revealed.

Head of regeneration and development, Hyndburn Borough Council officer Mark Hoyle, told councillors ‘there was real housing interest in the borough and the council intended to move with the momentum’.

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He said a report was being brought forward for an outline planning application for 500 homes, with the former Woodnook Mill sites thought to be the proposed location for the new estate.

Council leader Miles Parkinson said the development could be spread across several brownfield sites, including former mills, in the village.

He said landowners and developers were working together because of the cost of the infrastructure that would be needed.

He said: “The power station is under one ownership and the other sites are under different ownership.

“One of them could not afford the link road on its own. It would cost around three or four million.

“We have to look at a big planning brief for that area instead.”

Cllr Parkinson said the council would welcome any housing development as long as it came with the required infrastructure and quality of housing, including plans to deal with an increase of demand for school places.

He said: “Housing is important but so is the right sort of housing.

“We want to make sure there is a broad spectrum.

“We have a surplus of terraced homes but we need detached and semi-detached homes, houses for first-time buyers, and executive homes for business people so they live within and not outside the borough.”

Although the plans are still some way off being submitted for full planning permission, the move marks a step forward in the council’s plans to build new homes across the borough, including on the canal side at Rishton and at the Clayton triangle.

Huncoat councillor Dave Parkins said the homes would be built using government cash, and said negotiations were also under way with the owner of the former Huncoat power station, which closed in 1984 and has mainly been demolished.

He said: “If we get housing or businesses, we must have the infrastructure to go with it, I’ve always said that.

“If houses are built on the power station site there will be a by-pass, and somebody will have to fund it because we can’t flood the village with 500 new homes with what we have got.”