TOWN hall bosses must wrestle with making £1million worth of cuts while setting next year's Burnley Borough Council budget.

Controversy has already been created with the announcement that bowling greens at Towneley Hall, which cost £80,000 to maintain, are being ripped up in favour of plans for a walled garden.

But the move could be the first in a series of savings affecting services in Burnley as councillors prepare to tighten the civic purse strings for 2008-09.

One of the factors affecting Burnley's financial headache has been the increasing number of people migrating from the town, with an estimated 2,000 set to leave over the next six years.

The council tax base has already reduced from about 88,975 in 2004-05 to about 87,700 for the next financial year.

But finance chiefs, who are still awaiting how much they will receive in their annual revenue support grant from Whitehall, says while this is a worry, it is only a minor influence on the budget position.

It is now estimated that for every £1 spent from council tax coffers in Burnley, a further £2 of spending is reliant on the revenue support grant.

Nick Aves, Burnley Council's director of resources, said: "We're planning on making savings in excess of £1 million.

"All of the council's heads of service are looking at their budgets to see how we can achieve that.

"Unfortunately this is nothing new - we've had to find similar savings in recent years.

"It's too early to say where the savings will come from but we are looking at finding the money across the council and its whole range of services.

"We will try to identify as much as possible from efficiencies, to minimise the impact on services to the public.

"We won't find out until the end of November what the Government's grant settlement, the money they give us to provide services, will be, and we are working on the basis that next year's council tax rise will be under five per cent."

Councillors warned earlier this year that they could not rule out job reductions in order to make the £1million cuts.

Lancashire County Council, which has already axed bus services and closed information centres, is also facing the prospect of making £56million worth of savings before 2012.