THERE were tough words and a warning of hard decisions ahead as Burnley Council handed out £11-a-week council tax demands to most households - an 11.2 per cent rise.

Finance chairman Peter Kenyon said the council had slashed budgets by £1 million to meet spending targets and warned of wide ranging reviews of council services in the year ahead to bring about further major savings.

"There will be hard choices, but we intend to provide the best quality services we can afford and that Burnley needs," he said in his budget speech.

He said the authority would press for changes to correct the inherent unfairness of the council tax system and welcomed the Government's review of council finance, with its prospect of abolishing capping and bringing a return to business rates.

"We want to work in partnership with central government to make a reality of community planning for the town and deliver best value for Burnley," he said.

The pressure to achieve a legal budget, he said, had been considerable, but the council had been determined to minimise the impact on services, particularly protecting the most vulnerable. He admitted the authority had imposed "significant increases" in service charges but they were unavoidable.

Despite the problems, Burnley would still spend £7.8 million on capital schemes and take on the major challenge of raising cash for other important projects.

Burnley's portion of rate demands, he added, would rise by only two per cent this year.

Liberal Democrat Margaret Lishman congratulated Coun Kenyon on keeping the Burnley budget down, welcomed the planned service reviews, and said her party supported the budget.

By contrast LibDem party leader Gordon Birtwistle slammed Labour which, after years of attacking Tory Government policies, had produced exactly the same prescriptions and handed out a council tax four times the rate of inflation.

The Labour Lord Chancellor had found the cash to buy wallpaper at £360 a roll, but the council had refused one of his needy constituents a £60 decorating voucher for her council home because it had no cash. In the year ahead Burnley would be spending just £42,000 on repairs on the entire 5,000-home council housing stock because money had run out, he said.

And Independent Harry Brooks said the Labour council had engaged in "serial cock-ups" which had cost the town millions, forced its citizens to pay over-inflation increases for services and reduced the council's ability to spend money constructively.

The council by its actions, he said, had established a formidable reputation for gross and pronounced incompetence and was continuing to indulge in massive and wasteful exercises, such as the victimisation of councillors in the housing allocation inquiry which underlined his message "that there is something rotten in the state of Burnley Borough Council."

THE council accepted the budget which will send £586 bills to all Band A properties - two thirds of homes in the town. Other bandings are: Band B - £684.28; Band C - £78.04; Band D - £879.79; Band E - £1075.30; Band F - £1,270.81; Band G - £1,466.32; Band H - £1,759.58

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