[Acrylic-bob]

One of the first changes you will see is that your postal address has now changed from Lancashire to East Lancashire.

The plan groups all the authorities in the area; Hyndburn, Blackburn with Darwen, Burnley, Pendle and Ribble Valley into what is now to be known as a Regional Park. This regional park is to become a rural city, referred to as East Lancashire.

The plan recognises that the area is in a pretty awful condition and sets out a ten year scheme for improvements, we are currently in year 4 of that scheme.

This is where Elevate East lancs, Project Phoenix and the Panopticon originate from.

The main thrust of the scheme is to increase tourism in the area by a whopping 15% over the life of the scheme.

We are expected to wish to become hyperactive in getting out and about to do conservation work and bags of healthy outdoor activities, such as White Water Canooing (I kid you not, it is in the details of the bid) . Additionally there will be what are referred to as Gateways to the regional park/rural city, where large publicly funded art works will announce to the eager thrill seeker that they have arrived on the doorstep of a whole new life experience(groan!). There will also be interractive maps on the web which will show just what is available and where it is. I have just had a look at the map for Accrington - Stocklys Sweets, Ossy Mills and Haworth Art Gallery- Oh be still my beating heart !

Not content with all these joys, we are to be surrounded by 2,450 acres of new woodland, hedgerows, cycle paths, and walk ways with community art projects, which means more of those god-awful primary school mosaics.

The Scheme also recognises that a disproportionate amount of the jobs available in the area are poorly paid and require low skills, and it aims to rectify this by taking on, as a major sponser, Time Computers at Altham, one of the poorest Employers in the entire borough.

Oh there is so much in this that is poorly thought out, unfeasable, inappropriate, desperately fashionable, and just plain wrong! that it will keep Tealeaf and I in business for ages.

Go on, make the effort and read it, it really is worth submitting for the Booker Prize under the heading of Humourous Fiction/Satire.