THE leader of Lancashire County Council has hit out at what she says could be the true cost of a regional assembly -- tax payers' money and job losses.

Each council in Lancashire, including the red rose authority itself, has now passed on their ideas to the Government, setting out what they would like to see replace the current system if the public vote 'yes' to a regional assembly.

But County Councillor Hazel Harding has hit out at the move, which could see the county's district councils team up to become larger unitary authorities.

She claims there was a sharp increase in council tax and 1,000 redundancies when Blackpool and Blackburn with Darwen became unitary five years ago.

Coun Harding said: "It would be far more this time, because that was only two council's that were lost. The council tax, as a direct result of that, went up by about nine percent.

"More than half a million pounds a year is being spent to pay back the debt which was incurred on the severance payments for staff. One thousand people left and to pay them off we had to borrow the money."

The county council's preferred option is for a giant new council to oversee smaller cabinets at local level, thus giving town halls control of issues like transport and education.

Local council chiefs have rejected her concerns.

Councillor John Collins, leader of Preston City Council, said the benefits of a unitary authority would outweigh any possible costs. He said: "If authorities break away it could marginally affect the rest of us, but that isn't necessarily an argument against it."

And Councillor Howard Gore, leader of South Ribble, said: "Until we are actually up and running we won't know what the actual cost is.

"But if you don't want to bear that sort of cost and you don't want local Government to be shaken up in a way that it hasn't asked for, you should vote no."