THE first meeting of a group set up to discuss the future of Colne town centre has been hailed as ‘productive’.

The group of four councillors and council officers was originally going to discuss sites owned by the council’s regeneration partner PEARL, but have now widened their remit to cover the whole of the town centre.

Couns Joe Cooney, Paul White, Tony Greaves and Dorothy Lord met for the first time and told the Colne committee they wanted to keep the ‘momentum’ in Colne going.

Coun Greaves said: “We had an extremely productive first meeting. We have widened the remit to look not only at the existing PEARL properties around the precinct, but also the town centre as a whole.

“When we are happy with what we have got, we will be reporting back to this committee and reporting to the town centre forum to get its comments.

“This will generate local discussions and get people talking and thinking about we want to do with the town centre and how can we improve it.”

Council leader Coun Joe Cooney said: “This is just a group of councillors and local people who are interested in getting the best town centre we can possibly have.”

And Coun Dorothy Lord said: “I have never seen before the way businesses are currently working together in Colne.

“People in Colne are desperate to keep this momentum going.”