A DEVELOPER has outlined plans to breathe new life into a rundown area of Clitheroe by building hundreds of new homes in the near future.

Blackburn-based Beck Developments was granted permission to build 162 new properties, including 25 affordable homes, on land off Woone Lane, in 2009.

The 25 affordable homes, accessed via George Street and developed in partnership with Symphony Housing, were unveiled last year and have since been occupied.

With work on the remaining 137 market price properties set to begin in the coming months, the company has now submitted proposals to Ribble Valley Council for phase two of the scheme, which will see the construction of an additional 113 homes, including 32 affordable units.

Ambitious plans to redevelop the area, which runs from open countryside to Clitheroe town centre, were first unveiled by Ribble Valley Council in 1990.

Despite the council making part of the area available for residential development, nothing happened until Beck bought sections of the land in 2008.

The company, which has worked in partnership with the council, has taken the lead on managing the site.

John Wilcock, a planning consultant, has been involved in securing permission to redevelop the area since the late 1990s.

Providing permission is granted for the second phase of the work, he said Beck had agreed to build the 32 affordable homes first on the Mearley Croft site, which is currently in a poor condition, comprising dilapidated chicken runs and allotments.

Mr Wilcock said the remainder of phase one would run concsurrently with phase two.

Primrose Coun Allan Knox said he was keen to see the area redeveloped.

He said: “It would seem premature to be putting in for planning permission.

for phase two of the development when they have not even finished building the market part of phase one.”