A 'REBEL' community group aiming to challenge Burnley's official bid for £25million regeneration cash, has arranged to meet government officials to discuss its proposals next week.

Danehouse Community Partnership is pressing ahead with plans to win Single Regeneration Budget money for housing and re-development, despite pressure for them to pull out and allow a clear field for a bid centred on Burnley Wood and Accrington Road areas.

The Daneshouse group, furious that they had been left out of the official proposal, despite being the poorest area of town, says it has now won a meeting with government officers in Burnley on August 17, when it will state its case for help.

Members will also use the meeting to collect information on how Daneshouse can benefit from Burnley's new assisted area status to attract business.

And, says group spokesman Coun Mozaquir Ali, local representatives will fire in complaints over the area's failure to benefit from previous SRB allocatons for Burnley.

"We simply haven't had our fair share of what has come to Burnley and it is time to question this, too," he said.

Burnley Council leader Stuart Caddy and representatives of Burnley Regeneration Forum - which spearheads the town's bids for Government funding - have branded the Daneshouse decision 'a cause for alarm' which could damage Burnley and called on the partnership to re-think their plans.

But the Daneshouse group has snubbed Coun Caddy's offer of talks on the issue.

Said Coun Ali: "There is nothing to discuss. We should have been the area to benefit from the next SRB bid and we are pressing ahead with our application."

Coun Caddy said the rival bid was politically motivated and doomed to failure.

He added development agency chiefs deciding the major cash allocation would not back a town which had not got its act together and the money would go to a competing authority.

The council and Regeneration Forum have said that while Daneshouse has been left out of the SRB challenge, it had been decided the ward should be the focus for help in an even bigger New Deal programme bid, which could be worth £50 million.

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