COUNCILLORS in Clitheroe have set up a committee to look at dishing out thousands of pounds worth of town hall silver.

Clitheroe Town Council is offering 14 trophies and salvers worth from £300 to £3,000 each to schools and organisations - for free.

The council has been inundated with inquiries since the great giveaway was reported in the Lancashire Evening Telegraph. The trophies and salvers are various shapes and sizes, bear inscriptions, and most date from the late 19th Century.

Councillors decided the silverware had become too expensive to insure and maintain after a valuation by Sotheby's revealed its sale value had dropped.

Silverware experts from the top auction house said Victorian silverware was currently fetching only 20 per cent of its replacement value.

So councillors decided to give the trophies and salvers, worth more£11,000 in total, to local schools and organisations.

Town clerk John Wells said: "There was a huge response and councillors have now formally agreed to give the silver away. They have set up a sub-committee to look at how it might be done.

"The committee will be looking at whether to give the silverware away or lend it out on a long-term basis, as some of the pieces are extremely valuable and we want to know they will be looked after."

Coun John McGowan, a former Clitheroe mayor, has called for legal plans to be drawn up preventing the future sale of the trophies and salvers. "I am prepared to fight to prevent them ever being sold off."