DESPITE a looming deficit of £2 million only nine Burnley councillors turned up for a special budget training session.

Council bosses have revealed a massive projected overspend with savings of £1m needed for next year and a further £1m by April 2005.

The extra training session was instigated to give councillors a better understanding of town hall spending.

But a meeting of the authority's executive heard only nine of the borough's 45 councillors bothered to turn up for the extra training. These included seven of Labour's 28 councillors, two of the Conservative members and one Independent councillor.

No Liberal Democrat or BNP councillors attended the training session.

The register was blasted by Conservative councillor Jo Challinor. She said: "Only nine members turned up which is very poor.

"There is little point in preparing all these training programmes if members do not bother to turn up."

Under the council's current saving plans arts and leisure service and parks look set to be hardest hit with the arts and leisure department being told to find £146,884 and parks £174,187.

In addition support and member services has been told to slash £118,039 while the information services department has been told to find £108,633.

Voluntary groups are also fearing the worst after the borough council announced it was to withdraw funding.

Leader of the council Stuart Caddy said a clash of meetings was to blame for the poor show.

Coun Caddy said: "I was absolutely astounded to see that this training session was put on when there were other things in the council diary."

According to Councillor Caddy a meeting of the Burnley Action Partnership coincided. He added: "You can't force members to come. We only get a 50 per cent turnout if we are lucky. I think it is something we need to start looking at because it is not just Labour that is at fault.

"It is an appalling situation and that includes every councillor."

The council has also turned to its residents to ask them how they can plug the £2m gap in their budget.

They have printed around 2,000 booklets at a cost of around £1,000 asking people what services they want to keep and which to cut.

The leaflets, which have been circulated to public buildings throughout the borough such as town halls, libraries and housing offices, ask whether people want to see cuts or pay a higher council tax.