A LEADING Labour councillor is calling for the Ombudsman to investigate a controversial £112,000 loan by Lancaster City Council to the owners and developers of Morecambe's empty Winter Gardens.

Cllr Trevor Tattersall told a highly-charged meeting of the external affairs review board that the Buildings at Risk Trust (BART) and Barnfield Construction were: "As slippery as snakes."

The deputy leader of the council's Labour group added: "How we got in bed with them in the first place I don't know."

Legal advisers at Tuesday's meeting told Cllr Tattersall that a complaint would have to be made by a member of the public before the ombudsman could intervene.

Cllr Pat England told the meeting: "It was a back of an envelope deal many years ago and it is a dodgy deal now because we don't know the legal grounds.

"Local people con-tinue to ask questions.

Until they get the answers they won't go away.

It leaves a bad taste in the mouth."

But Labour leader Cllr Abbott Bryning said the deal had come about because of the clamour from people for pro-gress on the Winter Gardens.

Another development this week was the revelation that the council loan is not - contrary to suggestions from some councillors and officers - holding up grant applications.

Review board repres-entatives had spoken to Alen Bemrose of BART prior to the meeting and learned that a £2million grant - later reduced to £1 million - had been agreed with the Heritage Lottery Fund.

But this development had to be based on a business plan, which BART felt Barnfield should produce.

The earlier meeting was not open to the press or public, but an extract from the minutes says 'members were informed that BART had offered Barnfield a 999 year lease on the Winter Gardens in order for BART to be recipients of lottery monies, as Barnfield were unable to apply for such funding'.

The review board chose not to send a recommendation to the cabinet, which will make a final decision.

There was anger that two cabinet members -Cllrs Tricia Heath and James Airey - had met privately with represen-tatives of both BART and Barnfield on Mon-day without telling the review board.