RESIDENTS are blooming fuming again after claiming council workman mowed down more spring daffodils.

The grass verge at the junction of Tower Road and Preston Old Road, Blackburn, now contains just the stalks after being cut yesterday.

But council bosses today said the verge had already been mowed this year and any plants affected this time were just ones they had missed previously.

This follows the removal of daffs from Buncer Lane, which the Lancashire Evening Telegraph revealed two weeks ago.

Blackburn with Darwen Council has allowed gardeners to clip the flowers because its workmen can't mow around the stems. The council said that they were to remove daffodils from areas where they had received complaints of long grass from residents.

Alwyn and Margaret Davis live on Preston Old Road and saw the workmen take a mower to the daffodils.

Margaret, 69, said: "It is stupid. I bet the bloke in charge of this doesn't have a degree in horticulture After all the hoo-ha about Buncer Lane they start on this area mowing down daffodils.

"Our friends in Preston said all their daffodils had come out and looked lovely along the roads, I said ours did not get the chance to bloom. I think I will ask for a rebate on my council tax."

Alwyn, 73, said: "The daffodils were on a grass island and it is now bald. They have just left the stalks again.

"I have not heard of any complaints about the grass in that area. No one would have to walk across it and it would not obscure drivers' view at all. The ironic thing is that during the summer the grass is left to grow long, so we will remember this then."

Earlier this week the Lancashire Evening Telegraph spoke to one of the council workers responsible for the outcry.

The man said he was only following orders.

Darren Bell, from Blackburn with Darwen Council's landscape services section, said: "This is the second time this year that this verge has been cut.

"Any leaves that were visible were the remnants of old plants that would not have bloomed."