EAST Lancashire's new mental health headquarters has moved a step closer.

Lancashire Care NHS Foundation Trust wants to build an initial 72-bed unit on land between Shadsworth Road and Haslingden Road, Blackburn, with an anticipated opening in 2017.

Later, a further 36 in-patient beds and an eight-bed psychiatric intensive care unit will come online under its proposals.

Blackburn with Darwen Council's executive board has approved the sale of the 10-acre site to the trust.

The sale will bring an end to a seven-year debate, which has seen several other sites suggested and a number of models discussed for the county’s mental health services.

Land at the Pendle beauty spot Gib Hill was originally earmarked as early as 2008, with Colne’s Regent Street, Burnley General Hospital and Shuttleworth Mead, near Padiham, all considered and rejected in turn, before the Blackburn site was adopted.

Architects have designed the hospital, which aims to have a ‘non-institutional’ outlook, around a central ‘street’, connecting the wards with a cafe, shop, tribunal rooms, hall and fitness suite.

The new unit will eventually replace wards at Burnley General and the Pendle View and Hill View units at the former Queen’s Park Hospital site.

It will also end the saga of Blackburn's Medi-Knowledge Park conceived in 2006 and abandoned in October last year.

The £25million medical and science business park was supposed to create 1,000 jobs on 15 acres but only 3.8 acres were ever developed.

Council resources boss Andy Kay recommended approval for the sale to his executive board colleagues, initially on an option basis, as the best way to secure development of the site and generate a capital receipt for the borough.

He said: "This is an excellent development. We want to get it operational as quickly as possible."

Borough Tory group leader Mike Lee also backed the scheme as 'good news'.

The mental health scheme would involve three functional acute and three advanced care wards positioned to the back of the site away from Shadsworth Road, benefitting from generous landscaping, natural light and views across the countryside.

The intensive care facility will have its own entrance and be at the southern end of the main building, near staff offices.

The wards, each of which have dining, lounge, quiet and activity rooms, will open out onto courtyards.

The final scheme will require planning permission from Blackburn with Darwen Council.