Decades of diversity

The Rossendale Road Industrial Estate -- based on two sites in Farrington Road and Billington Road -- has been a major player in the borough's business sector employing tens of thousands of workers.

The first business to be built on the site was the Regent Axle company in 1959.

However, it was not until 1973 when the site started to take off, according to local historian Ken Spencer.

Over the next decade the former farmland -- Farrington Road predominately owned by Burnley Council and Billington Road by private developers -- saw gradual expansion until the boom of the 1980s.

In 1983 much of the site was granted Enterprise Zone Status for 10 years by the Government. The free rates and relaxed planning rules attracted a host of businesses which are still present.

Following the end of the Enterprise Zone status the council sold some of its units to safeguard jobs and keep big businesses in Burnley.

Today the 44 hectare 70 unit site is Burnley's biggest employer having created 2,032 jobs in 51 diverse companies.

Occupiers include large companies such as door and window manufacturer Veka and bakers Warburtons to smaller businesses like Scott Dawson Advertising and SR Signs.

And as the estate has grown so have some of the businesses.

Veka, who moved on site in 1986 recently completed a massive £9.5 million expansion scheme to build a new distribution and logistics centre swallowing up most of the former Lucas site and helping to fill a gap left since it closed in 2000.

Veka's neighbours, Warburtons, also bought 15,000 sq ft of the Lucas site to help in its expansion.

Their building has now doubled from the 45,000 sq ft unit they moved to in the early 1980s and its workforce has risen from 90 to 250.

General manager Duncan Lees said the Enterprise Zone really helped Warburtons and other businesses establish themselves.

He said: "We came in 1982 and that gave us a good start. At that time there was only one other unit in Billington Road but now we are totally surrounded.

"Now it is quite vibrant and over the years it has expanded.

"From our point of view it has been good. There is reasonable access, the workforce is good, the site has matured and is a well maintained estate."

When Rossendale Road started to expand the first white lines were being painted on the first stretch of the M65. And that access has improved somewhat in recent years with the extension of the M65 westwards to the M6.

The site is also accessible for workers with Rosegrove train station minutes away and last year a new bus service linking deprived areas with the estate was launched.

The 'dead end' of the M65 at Colne remains a problem, according to some. Burnley's former MP Peter Pike campaigned for years for better road links with Yorkshire and the North East and plans for a Foulridge by-pass caused much controversy.

But Brian Whittle, chief executive of Burnley Council from 1974 to 1993, and the man who helped bring the first section of the M65 to the area said the M6 link had benefited Rossendale Road.

"From a business and industry point of view, we would not have had so much investment in the area had it not been for the motorway making it more accessible," he said.

As well as the large well established companies the estate has up and coming businesses who use smaller units sometimes at a quick turnover.

B & I Fabrications, which employs 22 people moved to a 600 sq ft unit on the estate two years ago from their previous sites at Summit Works, Manchester Road and Empire Mill, Liverpool Road.

Managing director Ian Holdsworth said: "We moved because of the location which is reasonably close to the motorway and it is a freehold.

"We were operating from two sites, one was a leasehold and the other landlocked so we could not expand.

"That was not ideal so moved to one site."

A Burnley Council spokesman said the emphasis on the estate was job creation and the Enterprise Zone played a huge role in Rossendale Road's success.

He said: "Following the end of the status in order to secure the creation of long term jobs and large private companies the council were flexible in selling on the sites for private ownership.

"This flexible approach was successful in making this well established estate what it is today, a thriving estate, housing some of Burnley's most well known household name companies employing in excess of 2000 people."