STRICT financial prudence may have guided the decision by Colne councillors to turn down a request from church officials to take over the maintenance of the village burial ground where lies the grave of the town's greatest benefactor, Sir William Pickles Hartley.

But, in snubbing the plea by Pendle Methodist Circuit, they seem to have put a low price on the town's heritage.

For though he has been dead for nearly 80 years, Sir William -- who gave the world Hartley's Jam -- remains famed for the generosity he showed to Colne, where he founded the business that made his fortune. Long after he left the area, he retained close ties with his home town and gave it two hospitals and cottage homes for the needy.

Certainly, in moral terms, Colne remains in his debt, making the refusal of the request for the council to take over the maintenance of the isolated graveyard at Trawden, home of his forebears and to whose Primitive Methodist Chapel he gave financial support over a long period, seem singularly ungrateful.

And though cost seems to have had sway over any such sentiments, with councillors taking the advice of officers who said the local authority would take on an unreasonable liability and financial burden if it took over the graveyard, it is not as if the church officials were coming empty-handed. For they were offering to contribute the money from a bequest fund set up by Sir William's widow to help with future maintenance. Moreover, there is money in the dormant Save Hartley Hospital fund THAT could be called on.

Nor was it the case that they were being asked to take on a neglected site. It is still looked after and the main reason for the church asking the council to take over its maintenance is that the graveyard -- also the site of a Quaker burial ground dating from the 16th Century -- has no chapel and, so, no worshippers to support its upkeep in the longer term.

It may not be Colne's most noteworthy historical asset, but for it to be so churlishly dismissed is to forget and ignore the Hartley legacy to Colne and its contribution to its heritage. Perhaps the full Pendle Council will not be so mean.