A FORMER employee of Pendle Council has backed residents in the Whitefield area in their claim that they were not properly consulted over the Nelson West Renewal Area and said she was warned that her involvement in the issue could harm her employment prospects with the council.

Judy Yacoub, who was a community economic development worker, gave evidence at the public inquiry into the council's compulsory purchasing of the houses for demolition, which has now entered its third week.

In her evidence she said she supported the residents' claims that the council had failed to support community groups adequately, it had sought to manipulate local groups through restricting access to funding, it had not undertaken appropriate consultation with residents and where consultation had been undertaken the view expressed by representatives of the Whitefield and Bradley community had been ignored.

Judy spoke with residents who asked for support with setting up a residents' association but she was limited in the help she could offer. She told the inquiry: "I had been warned by my line manager that my involvement in this issue could harm my employment prospects with the council.

"Despite having a clear mandate for assisting local groups and individuals in Whitefield I was told not to get involved."

In response to the compulsory purchasing of houses for clearance she said: "This area needs some attention but ripping the heart out of it doesn't comply with the principles of regeneration. The local people here have had a very difficult time getting the support they needed."

When it was put to her, by the counsel for the council, that her role had been simply to help people in to employment she said that part of that role was to give people confidence and skills to work with others and an example would be to open their mouths and speak out at public meetings.

She also criticised the decision to hold a public meeting relating to the proposals for a renewal area on a Friday night, last July.

She said: "Organising a public meeting on a Friday evening, particularly in a neighbourhood which is predominantly Muslim, flouts every basic principle of good practice in community consultation but this is exactly what happened with the meeting called by Pendle's Planning Department to announce the Nelson West Renewal Area. No translator was present, despite the fact that over half of those present would have had severe difficulty in following the proceedings."

Most of the third week of the public inquiry into the compulsory purchase of homes in Whitefield is expected to be taken up with surveys of the proposed clearance area.

The inquiry inspector, Philip Asquith, has spent the last two days looking at the outsides and insides of houses in Albert Street in order to write his own report on their condition.

He will continue surveying streets in the area, such as Appleby Street, Every Street and Albert Street, throughout this week before going on site visits to other areas mentioned during the inquiry, such as Burnley Wood, where houses were bought by Burnley Council and demolished.