BURNLEY MP Gordon Birtwistle has welcomed the news that unemployment in the borough has fallen once again.

New figures show that there are now 1,890 Jobseekers Allowance claimants in Burnley – down nearly 700 over the last year.

“This is good news for people getting into work,” said Mr Birtwistle.

“I said in 2010 that we needed to rebalance the economy and restore the strength of the manufacturing industry so that we weren’t reliant on the City of London and finance and banking jobs.

“Recently I was at Kaman, a major international company which is investing in Burnley and bringing long-term, hi-tech jobs to our town.

“Coming on top of figures showing a 4.4 per cent growth in manufacturing over the last year this shows that we are making fixing and rebalancing the economy.”