A former Olympic athlete will begin co-presenting a live television programme from Keighley this Sunday.

The BBC1 programme, Sunday Life, will be broadcast weekly for six months from a converted loft in Dalton Mills.

Champion hurdler Colin Jackson will join BBC News presenter Louise Minchin to take an in depth look at topical, emotive subjects that affect British people.

Colin, who retired from athletics in 2003, said: "There are real people at the centre of every story. Sunday Life is in a great position to pose the questions thrown up by those stories and find answers to them.

"The show is about understanding how every story and decision affects everyone in Britain differently.

"We're talking to everyday folk and, while the issues we cover could be the same as the ones featured in the news, we'll come at them from a really personal point of view."

Louise, whose journalism experience includes reporting on Saddam Hussein's execution, said: "I really want to look behind the stories that I report on every day in the news, so we can understand how those stories happened and how people's lives have been changed as a result.

"I'm really looking forward to working with Colin. He's a superstar with amazing enthusiasm and I'm hoping I'll get a few dancing lessons thrown in too!" The series will place particular emphasis on issues of faith, belief and ethics.

Lousie said: "I'm really interested in the moral decisions we all face - how do we make those decisions and how do we decide they're the right ones?"

Colin added: "I'm a very spiritual person and that helps me appreciate all religions."

A spokesman for the programme makers - production company True North - said Dalton Mills provided an ideal venue for the venture. The first few editions of the 24-part series will feature stories such as Emmerdale actress Georgia Slowe's visit to Auschwitz to uncover the story of her mother's escape from the Nazis.

Other subjects will include the story of a survivor of the 2005 terrorist bombings in London and the tragic impact of a spate of suicides in the Ardoyne area of Belfast. The programme will be broadcast from 10-11am every Sunday until September.

Dalton Mills is being transformed by Wakefield-based property development company Magna Holdings Ltd, which bought the Grade II listed building in 2004.

The firm's management surveyor, Chris Lee, said: "We are delighted to welcome True North Productions to Dalton Mills.

"To have a high profile TV show filmed at the mill is obviously a huge coup for both Dalton Mills and Keighley as whole."