BURNLEY Council is set to invest more than £300,000 on providing new facilities for disabled residents and visitors in the borough.

Councillors were asked to approve two social care schemes following funding from Lancashire County Council.

Just over £250,000 will be invested in extending Haddon House care home to provide a short break unit for adults with learning and physical disabilities, while £56,622 is to be used to provide a sensory room and Changing Places facility in Burnley town centre.

Cllr Ivor Emo, the council's executive member for housing and leisure, said: "We want to use this funding to provide first class facilities and services for disabled residents and visitors and improve not only their quality of life, but also for their carers and families.

"The two schemes put forward for funding are both exciting and valuable in terms of the positive impact they will have, and we are extremely pleased to be able to support them. We're working closely with Lancashire County Council to make these projects a reality."

As part of the scheme, a sensory room and family meeting room for local charity Action for ASD (Autistic Spectrum Disorders) and a Changing Places disabled-accessible facility will be created at the town centre management offices in St James Street.

The council hopes the sensory room will ensure that autistic visitors have a positive experience when visiting Burnley town centre.

They say it will enable autistic children to have a quiet area they can spend time in should it be required and offer parents the opportunity to visit an environment they would normally avoid due to the excessive stimuli.

The proposed scheme at Hadden House would fund an extension to the existing six-bed unit to provide a separate annex with a further bedroom.

The investment will come from the Better Care Grant, money provided to the county council by the Government to be spent on social care projects.