‘Young people too smart to be Chavs’

His call comes after the Lancashire Telegraph revealed that Rossendale had been branded the Chav' capital of East Lancashire on the website www.chavtowns.co.uk Chav is often a derogatory term for young people who typically dress in tracksuit trousers, hooded tops, and checked baseball caps.

The site takes digs at Rawtenstall, Haslingden, and Waterfoot, and branded Bacup as a "right rough hole".

However, Rossendale Council leader Duncan Ruddick, who lives in Rawtenstall, today leapt to the defence of the borough and urged other people to post positive feedback on the website.

In a letter to the Telegraph he said: "I do not deny that there are aspects of life in the borough that I would like to see improved and, as a council, we are focused on delivering a community strategy which sets out to make the borough a place where everyone wants to live, work and visit.

"But, I was particularly disappointed about the very negative way that it portrayed young people in the borough.

"I should point out that young people in Rossendale have achieved some of the best A-level results in East Lancashire, so we can hardly be described as the Chav' capital of Britain.

"Having looked at the chavtowns' website, there is not a town, or city, in Britain which comes off unscathed.

"The site is clearly designed to give malcontents the opportunity to bad-mouth their towns and cities in a very one-sided way. Thankfully, several contributors to the chavtowns' website have had the good sense to highlight the good things about the borough.

"As one entry points out - we're actually really lucky to live in an area that is so pretty and still be so close to Manchester'."

He added: "I would encourage all those people who feel as I do to take the opportunity to visit this www.chavtowns.co.uk and post comments that will help to present a more balanced picture of the borough."