THE new leader of Rossendale council has said 2005 will be a positive year for the borough.

Coun Duncan Ruddick was confirmed as the new council leader last month.

The Worsley ward councillor was selected unanimously by the council's Conservative group after Coun Peter Steen stepped down.

Coun Ruddick said the new year would be an extremely busy and challenging one for the borough, but one that would see Rossendale take steps towards improvement.

Coun Ruddick said he was hoping this would be the year Rossendale shrugged off the tag of being a "poor" council.

The authority was rated "poor" - the lowest possible - by the Audit Commission this year in the first round of Comprehensive Performance Assessments (CPA) for district councils.

Neighbouring authorities of Burnley and Pendle were rated 'good'.

And bosses were also left reeling in 2002 when a Corporate Governance Inspection ranked Rossendale the worst of 237 councils in the UK.

The council will face a fresh Audit Commission report later this year.

Coun Ruddick said: "The big thing for the council this year will be the Audit Commission towards the end of the year and we hope and expect that we will move away from the poor rating to at least one of fair.

"We will be making some big changes to customer services, for example, and to refuse collection, which is really important to most people. We've also got a number of new senior managers coming on board who will help steer us in the right direction.

"This year will be an extremely positive one for Rossendale."