A CRUNCH meeting is due to be held tomorrow to try to thrash out arrangements for a new leader and ruling body for Burnley Council.

Most likely outcome is a coalition between Liberal Democrats, the joint largest party on the council with 16 seats, and the Conservatives, who have five.

But the delay is thought to be down to wrangling over how many seats each party would get on the executive, the decision-making body of the authority.

The deadlock has been caused by the local election results of last week which left previous ruling party Labour weakened after losing five of their 21 seats and the Liberal Democrats hugely strengthened by gaining five seats.

Labour lost their party leader and leader of the council Stuart Caddy in the poll, as well as long- serving member Peter Kenyon.

Party leaders have been meeting since the election results to try and come to an agreement.

Two years ago Burnley council was left in limbo for five weeks with no leader or executive when Labour and the Liberal Democrats failed to agree on power sharing.

Council bosses said the arrangements were likely to be confirmed at the next meeting of the council on May 18.