THE Queen is coming to Lancashire where she will end a tour to celebrate 50 years on the throne.

And communities who plan to honour the event with a lasting tribute are invited to bid for grants of up to £5,000.

Her Majesty will make two visits to the North West as part of her golden jubilee celebrations next year and will end the three-month nationwide tour in Lancashire. Plans of the exact location have yet to be finalised.

The Queen will tour the whole country from May 1 to August 5, coming to the North West from July 24 to 26 when she will open the Commonwealth Games in Manchester.

She will be back to close the event on August 4 and on the following day she will finish her round Britain trip in Lancashire, appropriate in view of her title as The Duke of Lancaster.

The golden jubilee will also see National Lottery grants of between £500 and £5,000 for voluntary organisations and local community groups for jubilee-related projects involving arts, sport, heritage, charities, health, education or the environment. They should leave a lasting legacy to the communities involved.

The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh plan to travel as widely as possible around the UK in 2002 to mark the event.

Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell said today: "The national celebration of 50 years of the Queen's reign is enormously important and I hope it will involve people of all ages and cultures and from all walks of life. It will be a time for looking forward as well as back.

"I hope it will be a time for national celebration with events involving the whole community.''

The Queen has asked that there be no appeal to celebrate the Golden Jubilee but those wanting to make a donation are encouraged to give to the five charities of which she is patron: Barnado's, CRUSE bereavement services; I CAN (a charity for children with speech and language difficulties), the Royal Agricultural Benevolent Association, and the Soldiers, Sailors and Air Force Association, or to the British Commonwealth Ex-Services League, of which the Duke of Edinburgh is Grand President.

The Golden Jubilee website is at www.goldenjubilee.gov.uk/