PENDLE'S council tax rate for the next financial year is still undecided after a special budget meeting was scrapped when the Liberal Democrat Party refused to reveal their proposals.

Now after two meetings to set the council tax for Pendle, where the council is currently hung, still nothing has been resolved because of a dispute over public accountability.

Once the Liberal Democrats announced at the Special Executive Budget meeting that they were not going to table their proposals, both the Labour and Conservatives held back on theirs too.

A motion has been passed that all political parties be invited to table their proposals for the budget to the special full council meeting next Monday but leader of the Liberal Democrats, Councillor Alan Davies, has said their proposals will still not be put forward.

Coun Davies said: "The line we took during the meeting was that during this current year we have adopted a modernised structure, which we don't like anyway, that is designed to show where accountability for decisions lies. Azhar Ali said he wanted a consensus budget and we took the view that that wouldn't do anything to show where accountability or responsibility lies and as such we were not prepared to help solve the internal problems within his group.

"The executive is supposed to make recommendations to the council and as a result of the fact that Liberal Democrats wouldn't play, the others wouldn't lay out their proposals either. We were totally open in our approach but they continued to be secretive.

"When it comes to the special council meeting our view will remain the same. Nothing is going to change. This has just delayed the entire process." Members of the Labour group on Pendle Council have demanded that the Liberal Democrats resign en-bloc.

Each year all political parties present their budget and proposals for how they would run the council the following year and what their council tax increase would be. At the meeting on Monday the Labour and Conservative groups were ready to table their proposals for consideration by the executive but were informed by the Liberal Democrat councillors that they were not going to present their proposals this year.

Labour's Coun Frank Clifford said: "We have got a hung council and it's quite proper that everyone contributes to the debate on the budget and the Liberal Democrats steadfastly refused to bring anything to the table."

But Coun Davies has hit back and said leader Azhar Ali should step down. Coun Azhar Ali, leader of the council, said: "People in Pendle deserve better and that is why the meeting was ended in order to give the Liberal Democrats another week to come up with how they would run the borough so that people in Pendle are given choices."

Conservative member Coun Tony Beckett said: "We had our budget ready and had worked hard on it. We felt it was irresponsible of the Liberal Democrats to do this."