THE man heading the task force set up to examine the causes of the Burnley riots today said he was satisfied and heartened by its first day's work.

Independent chairman Lord Tony Clarke and the other 15 members of the group spent yesterday at Burnley Town Hall discussing what happened and what can be done to prevent it occurring again.

In the coming weeks and months he will meet individuals and groups who want to put forward their views and suggestions.

The next meeting of the Task Force has been fixed for the South West Burnley community centre in Valley Street on Thursday, September 6.

It will be following on Wednesday, September 19 by another meeting of the Task Force at Daneshouse community centre, Daneshouse Road, and on October 10 by another meeting in the Lanehead/Casterton area, venue yet to be arranged.

All the meetings will start at 5.30pm with an hour for members of the public to put forward their comments. After an open forum yesterday, the task force discussed operational issues and also the report of the community conference which was held at Turf Moor in July.

The task force discussed the possibility of setting up some kind of youth conference or get together of young people from the borough.

Another suggestion being considered is having half-day seminars involving different groups including the voluntary sector, statutory sector including police, health organisations and council and a third for people involved in education.

Lord Clarke met a number of Burnley councillors individually last night before returning home to Hertfordshire. In the coming weeks and months he will meet individuals and groups who want to put forward their views and suggestions.

He said he hoped to be in a position to get his report and recommendations out by the end of October or early November, but has admitted that publicity for the group's first meeting was not good enough after only 25 people turned up.

And although former union boss Lord Tony Clarke praised those who did attend the public forum yesterday he said the group would be looking at ways to increase attendance at the next meeting in a fortnight's time. Adverts for yesterday's meeting only went out in the local press a week ago and only in English. There were no members of the Asian community in the public gallery. Lord Clarke said despite the poor attendance he had been pleased by the progress made at the meeting.

He said: "Throughout, the level of comment from the public was very high as was the interest and concern.

"I was highly satisfied with the day's work and heartened by it. I was very impressed by the hard work put in by all the members of the task force."

Lord Clarke paid special tribute to the younger members of the task force who, he said, had come up with excellent ideas for the future, such as using the internet to allow people to put forward ideas. Since he was appointed at the start of August, Lord Clarke has appealed for residents, business people and organisations to make their views known and so far more than 40 letters have been received and a number of e-mails.