BOSSES at East Lancashire's only lap-dancing club have applied for permission to give customers full frontal nudity.

They believe that the men of Blackburn want the move, less than a year after the opening of Velvet Lounge, in Duke Street, Blackburn.

Georgia Elliott, boss at the club, said they had applied to Blackburn with Darwen Council for a variation on their licence to permit girls to take their G-strings off when performing for customers.

Dancers in Preston are allowed to go nude, whereas applications for full frontal in Manchester and Blackpool are considered on the merits of each application.

A meeting of the licensing committee at Blackburn with Darwen Council will decide tomorrow whether to approve the alterations. When the council granted the licence to Miss Elliott last year, they introduced a clause which insisted girls keep their G-strings on at all time.

This, said a council spokesman, was for the protection of the girls.

But Miss Elliott said: "The girls I have working for me work at clubs across the country where they are allowed to go fully nude.

"The business has been successful but a lot of our customers are saying to us that they can go elsewhere nearby and get full nudity.

"We need the council to catch up with other councils so we can compete evenly with other venues.

"We think men from Blackburn and around are ready for full-frontal nudity."

When the club was first proposed, there was outrage from the church community, moral campaigners and health chiefs.

The church community was concerned at the the effect it would have on the moral standards of the town, while health chiefs were worried that aroused men could leave the premises and attack women.

Tory councillor Paul McGurty, who opposed a new licensed private shop near by, said: "The club was given the licence under certain conditions which included girls were not permitted to remove their G-strings. It would be wrong for the council to grant such a variation to its licence and make a total mockery of its original decision.

"This club is right in the middle of the college area and I have some serious concerns about a club of this nature and its location.

"I would urge the Council to look seriously at any variation application but ultimately reject any request that would allow girls to remove their G-strings contrary to the original approval."

A spokesman for the Church of England's Blackburn diocese said it did not have a comment to make on the proposed change to the licence, although a spokesman in London said the Church of England nationally was opposed to such venues, on the grounds they degraded women.

Police will make their thoughts known at the meeting but ward councillors have objected on the grounds that no alterations should be made to the licence until the club has been open for 12 months.