A HIGH-level government adviser has visited Pendle to learn about its race rela-tions strategy.

The Communities and Local Government depart-ment's director of faith, race and cohesion, Mark Carroll, visited school-children at Marsden Heights Community College, as well as talking to staff at the Building Bridges interfaith centre and bosses at Pendle Council.

He asked to visit the borough because of its strong record in comm-unity cohesion, and was shown examples of projects run by Building Bridges including its series of debates on racial and religious issues at Marsden Heights school.

Mr Carroll also visited the home of one of the families which took part in the "good neighbours" initiative, which brought families from different cultures together in their own homes. Salim Jogi, of Building Bridges, said: "We were very pleased that he wanted to come here and look at the way we do things in Pendle.

"At the moment community cohesion is an important issue for everybody and we have had a really good chat with Mr Carroll this afternoon.

"He was very impressed by all the work we do and he had a lot of questions about our projects and how they have come together.

"Hopefully he can take some of our ideas back to Whitehall and Pendle will be able to make a difference to the whole country."