A MAJOR project to overhaul Farnworth's Market Precinct looks set to be given a £1.41m cash injection.

An outline planning application for the £50m scheme was approved by Bolton Council in early September.

Revised blueprints for the regeneration project included 94 homes - split between 82 apartments and 12 family homes - alongside a commercial hub and community pavilion.

The works will benefit from a £13.3m grant courtesy of the government's Future Towns Fund.

And now it has emerged that the initiative, being taken forward by Capital and Centric, is in line for another boost.

An allocation of £1.41m has been identified for the Market Precinct from the Greater Manchester Brownfield Housing Fund, administered by the city region's combined authority.

Councillors have been told that two previously adopted packages, supporting housebuilding in Wigan and Rochdale, have encountered problems, meaning bids from an approved reserve list can now advance.

One scheme, for Frog Lane, near Wigan town centre, no longer qualifies as a landowner there has agreed a sale with another developer, so brownfield funding is no longer required to make the works viable.

Another potential venture at Castleton has hit the buffers as there are difficulties surrounding land ownership and clearances from the railway authorities, leading to doubts over whether the project can be completed within the required funding timescales.

This has led to the release of more than £3m in allocated funding - the other concept set to

Paul Dennett, Salford's city mayor and the combined authority housing lead, has noted in a report that the Farnworth masterplan benefits from the "reduced size of (the) scheme", which can be "progressed with deliverable timescales".

The Bolton News has previously reported that the number of housing units for the Market Precinct has been pulled back to 94 from an original figure of 220.

Mr Dennett's report will be considered by a full meeting of the combined authority on Friday in Manchester.

The full planning application from Capital & Centric for the precinct is expected to be considered in the coming weeks.

If approved, the developer has previously said that a start could be made on the scheme in early 2022.

Farnworth is also one of Metro Mayor Andy Burnham’s Town Centre challenge areas.