BLACKBURN'S drive to attract more tourists has received an unexpected boost -- after the town's orbital route was featured on a road enthusiast's website.

Bryn Buck, 16, has spent almost two years creating the Lancashire Motorway and Roads website, and is now getting hundreds of hits every week from fellow road lovers.

And judging by the messages Bryn, of Lower Darwen, has received from fellow enthusiasts -- modern-day train spotters -- his section on the orbital route is most popular.

Among its pages, it charts the creation of the orbital route -- which started life as part of the M65 when it was thought it would course through the town centre via what was to become Barbara Castle Way -- and highlights what Bryn considers to be its 'faults'.

Bryn, who is currently sitting his GCSEs at Our Lady and St John's High School, Blackburn, said: "People are fascinated by this road. They hear it is called the orbital route, which I then explain is really just a series of back streets cobbled together.

"People have asked me for its exact location and they do come and visit it. Enthusiasts will travel long distances to look at roads of note, and the orbital route is certainly one of those."

Since being opened in 2001, the orbital route has been beset by problems. In its first week, a failure to put signs warning drivers about traffic-flow changes led to a series of minor bumps, before road marking began to flake off just weeks after being put down.

And it still isn't complete. A weak railway bridge at Freckleton Street has forced the council to make part of the route one way.

Now plans have been devised for an £8million duplicate bridge to solve the problem.

But for Bryn, who one day hopes to work for the Ministry of Transport, it's great fun.

"I've always been fascinated by roads," he said. "I went to Lower Darwen Primary School so I got to watch the link on the M65 being built in the late 1990s.

"But Blackburn is full of unusual things about roads which gives me plenty of stuff to put on the website."

Visit the website at www.lmars.co.uk