ARRANGEMENTS are being made to house scores of Kosovan refugees in Lancashire, County Hall chiefs have revealed.

The county council is in negotiations with local authorities, the emergency services and local charities in an attempt to find temporary homes for the refugees.

Refugees have already arrived in this country and are being housed in emergency accommodation in Yorkshire and Leicestershire.

Along with other Nato countries - some of which are taking up to 20,000 of the displaced ethnic Albanians - the British Government has said it will take in more refugees to help ease the pressure on the overcrowded emergency camps placed on the Kosova border in Macedonia and Albania.

It is not yet known exactly where the refugees will be housed, how many will be coming or when they will arrive.

But the Government has asked Lancashire to draft plans so they can provide accommodation when it is needed.

The majority of refugees were forced to leave their homes at gunpoint. Many witnessed friends and families being slaughtered in ethnic cleansing orchestrated by Serb leader Slobodan Milosevic.

A County Hall spokesman said: "The county council emergency planning department is co-ordinating a contingency plan for receiving the Kosovan refugees in Lancashire.

"A multi-agency approach will involve local authorities, the emergency services and charitable organisations throughout Lancashire."

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