THE renaming of Blackburn College was heralded today as a step towards creating a university for East Lancashire.

The East Lancashire Institute of Higher Education, as it will now be known, has been offering higher education for 30 years.

But East Lancashire is the largest area in England without a University of its own.

Now dean of the Institute, Brian Whitehead, said the new name "takes us one step closer."

The institute already comprises five schools, namely Blackburn Business School, School of Integrated Arts, School of Education and Humanities, School of Social Science and the School of Science and Technology.

It delivers 75 per cent of higher education in East Lancashire, with more than 2,000 students.

A wide range of the degrees are from the College's Associate partner, Lancaster University, and also the Universities of Glamorgan, Huddersfield and Hull. MPs and the East Lancashire Partnership have been campaigning for the university, saying it will have massive economic benefits for the region. They have set themselves a five year deadline to realise their ambition.

According to latest UCAS figures, the body which oversees university applications, 17.9 per cent of Blackburn with Darwen 18-year-olds are entering higher education compared to a national average of 21.5 per cent.

Leaders at the institute hope a University in East Lancashire could buck the trend. To make a bid for University status there has to be a minimum of 4,000 students.

Mr Whitehead added: "We are still in discussions with the Universities. It is a problem that we are surrounded by some of the biggest players in the Higher Education field with Manchester and other Universities.

"But becoming an institute is one step closer as a University does not just appear. It grows over a long period of time and the business and community must work together to make that happen.

"Keeping graduates in the area is vital to the economy. Often when graduates have studied here they want to stay and contribute."

Sir Bill Taylor, chairman of the East Lancashire Partnership, made up of councils, business and public organisations, has opened talks with Lancashire's two universities to see if opening a campus in East Lancashire is a possibility.

Coun Taylor, also leader of Blackburn with Darwen Council and a governor at the East Lancashire Institute of Higher Education, said: "We have an aspiration to provide a full range of educational opportunities in East Lancashire not just for resident students but for people travelling from further afield.

"This is a step towards that overall aspiration."