A MOVE for a new railway station at Spring Vale, Darwen, has hit the buffers.

Councillors are to focus their efforts instead on other ways to improve the Blackburn-Manchester line.

The six councils of East Lancashire - Blackburn with Darwen, Hyndburn, Pendle, Rossendale, Ribble Valley and Burnley - have joined forces in the new East Lancashire Partnership group to campaign for better services in the area.

The first part of their campaign is likely to focus on the heavily criticised level of service between Clitheroe and Manchester, through Bolton and Blackburn.

But when Conservative Coun Fred Slater asked Blackburn with Darwen officers whether a new station at Spring Vale would be part of the campaign, he was told that was unlikely.

Council officers told him that the first aim of the group will be to pressurise train operator First North Western into introducing a half-hourly service over the line instead of the hourly service.

And he was also told that a major priority would be for double tracking to be re-introduced where the line has been singled in recent years, so operators can put on more trains.

The East Lancashire Partnership is also likely to campaign for services from Colne to Manchester and a direct link to Manchester Airport.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.