FORMER Burnley Labour leader Kath Reade is to quit the council in May.

The town's first woman council leader says pressure of other work and the need for change has prompted her decision not to seek re-election in Trinity ward, which she has represented for 12 years.

London-born college lecturer, Coun Reade, 51, faced three challenges for her leadership - all from Coun Stuart Caddy - in the four years she led the ruling party and was toppled in May last year.

Since then she has concentrated on her work as health spokesman on the new and powerful North West Regional Development Agency and as a director of Burnley Health Care Trust.

Today she said her reasons for going were her increasing involvement in NHS work and her belief that people should not monopolise positions forever.

"The council desperately needs some younger, energetic and intelligent people to come forward," she said.

She said in Trinity she had been proud to have helped set up four community groups which had come together to continue the work of improving the area. She was also happy to have played a part in the 10-year campaign for the removal and replacement with new housing of the problem Trafalgar flats, which had now come to fruition.

"I have enjoyed my work in Trinity. There is still more to be done, but much has been achieved," she added.

Mrs Reade, recently appointed the national Labour Party local government spokesman on social exclusion issues, succeeded Ken McGeorge as council leader in 1994.

Her period at the helm was marked by many successful community and anti-crime initiatives.

But her determination to press ahead with a controversial housing allocations inquiry, in which Labour councillors were investigated for allegedly helping constituents jump the housing queue, split the council.

Although her stance drew strong support from the national party, it proved divisive in the local Labour ranks and is seen as the primary reason for her election defeat to Coun Caddy.

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