A NEW blueprint is being drawn up to give a former Kearsley industrial site a fresh start.

The move follows a re-think of the future of the Singing Clough site where part of a scheme for new industrial development has had to be reconsidered because of the cost of coping with ground conditions and an old industrial tip.

Part of the site was a well known tip for many years and still contains remains of yesterday's industry. A new development brief is being written to tackle the industrial contamination.

Options to be looked at will include building a separate access road to the proposed industrial area of the site; treating the tip area, and then, as part of a long-term reclamation scheme, landscaping and planting out part of the area and developing part of the site. These ideas will be put to local residents for their views.

It was originally hoped that the site could become a valuable jobs provider with its total redevelopment. But now Bolton Council has been told that a proposed scheme put together for them by a private developer, supported by the North West Regional Development Agency, could not be agreed on.

Langtrees, of St. Helens, and the Regional Development Agency failed to agree on funding due to the piling and foundation work that would have been required to overcome land settlement problems.

Cllr Noel Spencer, Chairman of the Farnworth SRB initiative said he was disappointed that agreement could not have been reached between the developers and the RDA.

"We were optimistic about the jobs and getting the site back into use and it's been a difficult decision to balance the loss of potential jobs with the extra cost of developing the site."

He added: "The Council is still determined to tackle the contamination problems and we are hopeful that some development will go ahead in the future." and in fact we have already started preliminary work using the information we now have." Although known about, the details of the Langtrees scheme to tackle the problems could not satisfy the funding rules of the recently established Regional Development Agency.