Sit-com

Pendle Council is considering selling off council houses, working on a £12million revamp of run-down areas and says it has been swindled by the Government to the tune of £4million.

But the first thing the full council meeting will debate when it meets in Nelson Town Hall tonight is where councillors are going to sit.

Today John Clancy, a non-political, non-elected member of the council's Nelson area committee, branded the situation ridiculous.

He added: "I find it absolutely amazing to be discussing where people sit in a meeting. It makes you wonder what they are there for."

Over the years the number of Labour councillors has fallen

while the Conservative ranks have swelled.

The Tories, who sit at the front, have said they should swap seats with Labour as they are now the second largest group.

But Labour, who share the back two rows with the Liberal Democrats, don't want to move. Instead, they want the 10-strong key Lib Dem executive to move to a small group of seats at the front.

The Tories and Lib Dems claim Labour have been childish but Labour say they are not schoolchildren who can be told what to do.

Councillors put off deciding the contentious issue of who sits where last time they met and left it up to political group leaders to sort out.

But they have failed to reach an agreement so now the full council will start a meeting to discuss selling council houses, how the borough should develop over the next 15 years, a lack of Government funding and Pendle's dental crisis by debating who gets to sit at the back.

Lib Dem council leader Alan Davies said he is intensely frustrated, adding: "People will think the council is an early performance of the Christmas pantomime when they see us debating seating.

"I am sorry to say this is due entirely to the childish behaviour of the Labour group which has refused to accept sensible and obvious proposals following the election in June when they went down from 14 to eight seats."

After Marsden councillor Gary Rowland's defection from Labour to the Tories, the former now have seven seats, with the Tories 12 and Lib Dems 20.

And Tory group leader Coun Tony Becket said they are now too squashed - while Lib Dem Coun Tony Greaves revealed no one liked sitting in the middle as they felt too exposed.

Prominent Labour councillor Mohammed Iqbal said the Lib Dems were playing silly politics and wanted to hide at the back under the balcony.

He added: "The chief executive and leader of the council were going to look at a seating arrangement where nobody had their back to each other. Labour came up with a constructive suggestion that the Liberal Democrats should sit at the heart of the meeting.

"This is wasting public time, there are far more important issues to discuss."

Former Pendle Council leader Azhar Ali, describd the situation as 'playground politics' said: "I think it is childish and petty. Only the councillors seem to be concerned about where they sit. The ordinary man and woman doesn't care.

"It is about time councillors got more serious about representing the people. It is about waking up to reality. It is playground politics."