A RACE equality watchdog's last remaining cash backer has pulled the plug on its funding.

Burnley and Pendle Racial Equality Council (REC) has been given a month's notice that Pendle Council's £28,000 a year funding will stop. The council will clear outstanding invoices and costs.

Talks are continuing with Burnley Council on plans to create a new body, the Racial Equality Partnership, which would eventually take in a wider range of organisations including the police and social services. A meeting has also been called for with senior officers from the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) to discuss ways of continuing to deliver racial equality and harassment work in the boroughs.

Burnley and Lancashire County councils pulled out of funding the REC after internal wrangling within the organisation, followed by the CRE which felt it could not go on without the other two, leaving just Pendle giving the group financial help.

"I think this is the time we should take bold action," Councillor Azhar Ali told Pendle Council's policy committee last night. "It is a difficult action but we have to take it now."

Labour colleague Councillor Khalid Mehmood added: "I believe, especially in this area, that work on racial equality is needed and needed urgently. We need to address this issue properly."

Tory group leader Councillor Roy Clarkson, in backing Labour's move to stop funding, said: "We're prepared to grasp the nettle and let the flak come."

But Liberal Councillor Alan Davies argued: "We ought to continue funding the REC until such time we have finalised how a Racial Equality Partnership will work. We don't want to slam the door on the one body in this area with experience of racial equality work. This proposal is premature."

A plan to create an East Lancashire wide REC were dropped after public protests by campaigners. But the days of the Burnley and Pendle REC were numbered after their Liberal Democrat supporters in Pendle lost overall control of the authority in last month's local elections.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.