BURNLEY MP Peter Pike today welcomed a £500,000 scheme to rebuild Burnley's flagship Central station but said more needed to be done to overhaul the town's ailing public transport links.

Mr Pike said radical improvements were also needed at Manchester Road Station and the transpennine train service, which serves travellers between Leeds and York and Preston and Blackpool.

He said Manchester Road required urgent upgrading in order to fulfill its potential as a major station.

Plans were unveiled last month to demolish Central's old building and replace it with a futuristic station with ticket office, waiting area, disabled access and CCTV.

The Strategic Rail Authority, Lancashire County Council, the borough council, First North Western and the East Lancashire Partnership will spend £500,000 under the scheme, which is used by passengers travelling to all stops along the Blackpool South to Colne route.

Since being built in 1960, large areas of the building have become redundant, resulting in large parts of it becoming "dark, empty and threatening" for passengers.

Under the new plans, the existing station will be demolished and a new building constructed slightly further up the station's long platform.

A new station car park, bus stop and taxi drop-off point will be included outside while space for a retail unit will be included in the design. A new shuttle bus service is also being considered for people to get between the Central and Manchester Road stations and the new bus station.

A new ticket office and improved waiting area will be provided, along with better access for disabled people.

Today Mr Pike said: "The improvement of Central Station is something I have been constantly been campaigning and working for and this is very good news indeed."

However he added that improvements were also needed to Manchester Road Station, including a working PA system and a ticket office and platform staff.

He said: "I do not think that Manchester Road station has fully developed its potential, it needs to be a manned station with a ticket office. At the moment people do not know whether trains are on time or delayed because there are no staff there and there is no PA system to inform passengers.

"The service from Manchester Road is the quickest service to Preston and Blackpool from Burnley but lots of people do not risk using it because they don't whether their train will be on time.

"There are also issues of security about an unmanned station as it is somewhat isolated up there."

Six months ago Burnley's Manchester Road station was branded 'a disgrace' by Burnley West representative Marcus Johnstone, who called for an immediate clean-up and improvements to the service.

He said fed-up commuters were finding it increasingly difficult to use the service from Burnley to either West Yorkshire or Preston and Blackpool and that they were greeted with smashed bottles, overflowing litter bins and discarded take-away food on the platform.

A spokesman for the Strategic Rail Authority said: "If we received a bid from a rail company for improvements it would be considered to see if it offered value for money and a better service for passengers."