BURY'S threatened Arts and Crafts and Mosses Centres have been told - you'll get no special treatment.

Tory group leader, Councillor David Higgin, said these two centres were so important to the town that they should have first call on available cash.

But Labour councillors insist there should be no special cases while the crisis in community education is being tackled.

Thousands of Community Education Service (CES) users have been angry since the council chopped its budget last year by £630,000.

Centres were told they had to find 20 per cent of their running costs last year, and 50 per cent this year. But many centres simply cannot afford to pay, leaving the service budget £178,000 in the red. Large centres like the Arts and Crafts were then threatened with closure to make up the shortfall. Although they have been given a reprieve, councillors at Wednesday's resource committee refused to raise cash ceilings to help out. They will carry on overspending until the year end when the whole future of community education will be decided.

This was despite the views of Mr Kevin Brady, lifelong learning manager, who told them that community education had been "nothing short of a mess this year" adding "we have serious problems in the CES with the contributions to running costs."

Coun Higgin suggested the Arts and Crafts and Mosses centres should be treated as "key issues" in next year's budget.

"The Mosses caters for a lot of under-privileged people who don't have the cash to give to us. The Arts and Crafts centre is one of the most historic buildings in this town, but it doesn't raise the money to pay the 20 per cent. We have to say they must be preserved at all cost. It doesn't mean we are abandoning the other centres."

Council leader John Byrne was sympathetic, but said the whole of community education had to be considered, not centres taken in isolation. "We have to take a long hard look at how we try to deliver that and how realistic we can be in asking centres to contribute towards their costs. The money has to be found from somewhere."

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