BURNLEY will lose out on a £2.85 million cash bonanza if it misses the bus and fails to sell its share of Burnley and Pendle Transport.

Pendle Liberals announced today they will accept the £2 million on the table from the giant Stagecoach company for the borough's 50 per cent holding in the bus company.

The figure will be boosted by another £850,000 if Burnley, currently opposed to the sale, come in on the deal.

Liberals say they have won agreements which will safeguard the long-term future of the company which would otherwise face "death by a thousand cuts".

But spokesman, Tony Greaves, said the sell-out would have a downside, with maintenance jobs facing the axe at the Queensgate depot and service cuts on the busy Colne-Burnley mainline service.

He warned that pension rights for the 270-strong workforce would also be far more difficult to protect if Burnley maintained its no-sale stance.

But he hailed the deal, hammered out by the Liberals, as the only way forward for the bus company.

He said they had won guarantees on services and the employment of bus drivers.

Stagecoach has promised massive investment in the ageing bus fleet which presently is not being replaced. It views the present fares structure - around the highest in the North West - as too dear and wishes to reduce them.

He said Pendle would pick up the extra £850,000 premium if Burnley decide to sell out any time in the next three years - even at a much-reduced price. "We are convinced that sale is the only choice - the bus company at the moment has no future."

He said the deal could be signed and sealed within days of final approval by Pendle council next week.

He predicted that even with only a 50 per cent stake, Stagecoach would very quickly take real control and Burnley would have to do what the company wanted.

And he was confident the Liberals would get council approval, despite strong Labour opposition and a wafer thin two vote majority.

That would put Burnley Labour leaders under the cosh.

The 100 per cent bid - much higher than expected would do much to ease the town's financial crisis.

Failure to sell could leave Burnley with little real power on the bus company and with the prospect of seeing its present £70,000-a-year dividend evaporate.

Although Labour leaders have given the public impression they will never sell out and there is nothing to force them to do so, the reality of the situation may well change that stance and they could face another embarrassing policy climb down if the Liberals call their bluff by agreeing a sale

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