A NEW draft map for Parliamentary constituencies in East Lancashire has been published which drops plans to create a new West Pennine Moors seat but still carves up Ribble Valley.

Last year's plans to create a Burnley and Bacup constituency are abandoned but a new seat of Pendle and Clitheroe is created.

Hyndburn will no longer be enlarged to include three wards from Ribble Valley but keeps Greenfield and Worsley wards in Haslingden.

Rossendale and Darwen constituency will remain but gain all of Blackburn South and Lower Darwen ward, including Blackamoor currently in Blackburn constituency.

The previous proposal to heavily redraw it and rename it West Pennine Moors while handing it Haslingden is scrapped.

The Blackburn constituency remains largely unchanged as the plan to include Lower Darwen with in its boundaries is dropped.

The biggest changes from the plans detailed in June last year are abandoning the proposed Burnley and Bacup seat and creating a new Pendle and Clitheroe constituency.

Instead for the former gaining Bacup it will instead include the two Pendle District wards of Brierfield East and Clover Hill, and Brierfield West and Reedley.

The new Pendle and Clitheroe seat will include ten wards from the Ribble Valley, covering the Whalley and Clitheroe areas.

The redrawn Ribble Valley seat will retain Fulwood, Bamber Bridge and Walton-le-Dale.

The new draft map will now go out to consultation for four weeks before a final version is produced on July, hopefully in time for the next General Election expected in 2024.

Blackburn MP Kate Hollern said: "‘I can see the logic in the revised proposals for Blackburn.

"I am sorry to be losing those residents living in the Blackamoor area who will transfer to Rossendale and Darwen under these proposals."

The latest report from the Parliamentary Boundary Commission for England says: "The evidence provided against the initial proposals was considered to be compelling,

"We propose the existing constituencies of Blackburn, Chorley, Hyndburn, and Rossendale with Darwen remain unchanged apart from re-alignments with new ward boundaries.

"Our assistant commissioners noted the opposition received to the proposed Burnley and Bacup constituency.

"Accordingly, they recommended to us a Burnley constituency largely the same as the existing constituency but would also include the two Pendle District wards of Brierfield East and Clover Hill and Brierfield West and Reedley.

"Upon visiting the existing Ribble Valley and Pendle constituencies, the assistant commissioners were clearly of the view that the Whalley and Clitheroe areas were similar in nature.

"They therefore recommended to us a revised Ribble Valley constituency, and a Pendle and Clitheroe constituency that would contain the entirety of the Borough of Pendle, aside from the two Brierfield wards, and ten wards from the Ribble Valley, covering the Whalley and Clitheroe areas.

"It was considered that the inclusion of these areas from the Ribble Valley constituency within the same constituency as wards from Pendle was more suitable than their inclusion in either the Hyndburn or Burnley constituencies..

"The new proposal would retain Whalley in the same constituency as Clitheroe which would also contain a large enough Ribble Valley element that there would be no question of the area being ‘overlooked’."