I have reviewed the budget proposals to be put before Burnley Council for approval this week and it is apparent that the scale of the cuts is monumental.

The records on www.burnley.gov.uk do not go far enough back to even see when we were last at these pitiful budget levels.

The total being proposed across revenue and capital for 2011/12 amounts to £24.8m.

The earliest records on the council website is 2005/06 when revenue and capital amounted to £38.2m This amounts to a 35% cut on levels 6 years ago.

The revenue budget is increased by 1.38% across the six years but the capital is decimated (circa 50% cut).

Burnley is already an area with high levels of deprivation and with no capital investment in the future this could turn Burnley into a ghost town in a very short space of time.

When you consider that many residents also have high reliance on welfare and these benefits are being cut it will suck even more millions out of the local economy. Our town will become an economic wasteland. Mark Townsend, (ex councillor), via email