A £1MILLION project to replace ageing electricity cables along a main road into an East Lancashire town is now well underway.

Work in Rawtenstall began on time last week.

Electricity North West are replacing nine underground high-voltage cables dating from the 1950s stretching 1.6kilometres along Bacup Road.

The work will benefit 6,000 customers in the town who have experienced power cuts for two years

Temporary traffic lights and one-way traffic will be in place on Bacup road until the work is completed in October.

Michael Dawes, area manager for Electricity North West, said: "We’ve listened to early requests and provided further parking and traffic seems to be running as normal.

“The work is going tremendously well and already we have excavated 70metres installing over 450m of ducting.

“We’re really pleased with how the work has started and we’ll look to keep disruption to the bare minimum.”