AN invitation to meet the Rossendale Chartists, a group set up to promote good practice in local government, has been made to the council's new interim chief executive.

Troubleshooter James Gravenor takes over the helm of Rossendale Council today and has vowed to turn it around in six months from being branded the 'worst authority in the country,' following an Audit Commission inspection.

He also said he wanted to meet the public of Rossendale and find out what people thought of the authority.

Brenda Wilkinson, secretary of the Chartists, said: "Our message to Mr Gravenor is please meet with us soon, please listen to our strategic good practice agenda and please harness our talents, local knowledge and community links for the good of the district as well as the council."

Brenda also urged Mr Gravenor to make tough decisions and make them early so there would, hopefully, not be a need for a chartist group.

She said: "We have no doubt that he will need to make some hard-nosed decisions on staffing issues, particularly at management level.

"As a group of people who are, otherwise, involved in community work across the district, we only formed the Chartists because Rossendale Council was so completely awful that something simply had to be done."

She said there are still problems with the council's organisational skills and in particular a meeting this week for the authority's new community involvement working group has been scheduled for Wednesday, the same day as the bi-monthly forum meeting of another community group.

Brenda added: "We have been looking forward to the first meeting of this group, only to find that it clashes with community action for Rossendale -- the key umbrella organisation for community groups in our district.

"While I am speaking at this forum meeting on the need for a local Rossendale compact, councillors are meeting in another place with no mention of this strategic issue on their agenda."