THE company responsible for spending hundreds of millions of pounds of Government money on housing projects in East Lancashire today called on local firms to make sure they benefited.

Around £7million-worth of tenders are currently on offer for repair and facelift projects across East Lancashire -- and every year for the next decade.

Over the next decade, hundreds of millions of pounds will be spent across Blackburn with Darwen, Hyndburn, Burnley, Pendle and Rossendale.

Large-scale demolition is planned, with new estates being developed.

While Elevate plans to use large developers for the big schemes, it does expect those firms to use local companies for parts of the projects.

And smaller schemes will be tendered out directly by Elevate to local companies.

Supply chain specialists Valueworks has been drafted in to engage with local firms, ranging from suppliers of scaffholding and roofing to windows, fences and skips.

Tom Dobrashian, Elevate's commercial director, said: "We are working closely with local authority partners to transform the quality of housing stock and create sustainable neighbourhoods. We all know many areas are in a poor state, and getting worse. This is our chance to reverse that trend.

"Our message to East Lancashire suppliers is that there are opportunities here.

Local firms are every bit as likely to bid for and win the work as companies based elsewhere."

Max Steinberg, chief executive of Elevate, said: "Our work is about so much more than housing.

We aim to regenerate East Lancashire for the future, making it thriving once again.

"Ensuring local businesses benefit from our work is very important and we are working to ensure businesses have the skills to be able to take part."

Elevate is already part-funding building courses at local colleges to ensure there is enough local labour to meet demand.

And specialist courses -- including the installation of solar panels -- have also been launched.