THE manager of a popular eating house today warned jobs could be put at risk by council bosses' refusal to name the establishment at the centre of the Ribble Valley E.coli alert.

Andy Grey, 29, manager of the Old Stone House, Mitton, said his business had been badly affected by the refusal of environmental health officers to identify the food outlet at the centre of the scare.

And he warned if the situation continued much longer he might have to lay off staff in an attempt to cut his losses because of unfounded rumours that his business was the one at the centre of the alert.

The Old Stone House was fined £7,000 by Blackburn magistrates last month for food safety contraventions.

Bosses have since brought the Grade II listed building up to scratch with a £100,000 revamp.

But a week after the court case a teenager from Padiham spent a week in the intensive care unit at Burnley General Hospital with E.coli poisoning contracted from an outlet in Ribble Valley.

Officers from Ribble Valley Council and the East Lancashire Health Authority launched an investigation, but it could be some time before a decision is made whether to press charges.

Health watchdog the Community Health Council has called for the identification of the premises in the public interest.

And the Old Stone House manager claimed refusal to name the premises was affecting his trade.

He pointed out that his establishment was not prosecuted for offences concerned with the storage of food. "Our premises needed a major revamp, but this is a listed building and it was not a straight forward matter. We have complied with the requirements of the environmental health officers and spent £100,000 on upgrading the building.Our prosecution was not for offences concerned with the storage of food. We had a host of structural problems, but people think we were behind the E.coli alert and our business has plummeted from 60 bookings a night to less than 10.

"I am calling on environmental health bosses to clear up the ambiguity surrounding this matter and publicly name the outlet at the centre of this scare.

"Why should my business suffer because of their refusal to do so?

"We won't be closing for the forseeable future, but if this state of affairs is allowed to carry on I might have to look at laying off staff," he said.

A spokesman for the East Lancashire Health Authority said the question of charges relating to the E.coli outbreak was a matter for Ribble Valley Council.

But council bosses were today standing by their decision not to name the outlet at the centre of the alert.

"We are not prepared to release the name of the food outlet concerned as our investigations have so far provided no conclusive evidence that it was responsible," a spokesman said.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.