A NEW company is set to regenerate rural areas of the South Pennines.

The non-profit company, Pennine Prospects, was launched in Leeds.

A Spaces for People and Prosperity Green Infrastructure Conference in the city was told the company aims to do three things.

These are:

* Develop a sustainable economy in the South Pennines

* Protect and enhance the character of the area

* Promote it as a good place to visit, live and work.

Pennine Prospects is run by a board of nine directors from the public, private and voluntary sectors.

They are being supported by a group of technical advisers from councils - including Kirklees - in the area.

This team is looking at ways to improve the co-ordination of visitor events across the South Pennines.

Organisations supporting the company also include Bradford, Calderdale, Rochdale, Oldham and Lancashire councils, Yorkshire Water, United Utilities and a voluntary group, the South Pennines Association.

The Countryside Agency has just said the South Pennines was one of several areas chosen for a national pilot study into `green infrastructure'.

This means looking at the way protected land and watercourses connect to support nature, maintain ecology and resources.

Pennine Prospects chairman Gordon Kingston said it hoped to make the South Pennines thrive.

He said: "Pennine Prospects has been established to work with communities in the region to deliver a better quality of life through sustainable projects.

"For instance, we are already organising more walking festivals, with all their bonuses in leisure and health."

He said the area's unique heritage made it very significant.

He said: "Nowhere is the 700-year journey from agrarian life to industrial society better illustrated than in the moors and mills of the South Pennines."