A FUNDAMENTAL review of Pendle Council will be carried out over the next five years to ensure local people get efficient, relevant and affordable services.

Council leader Alan Davies promised wide-reaching reforms to make sure services were delivered appropriately.

"We will put in place the most rigorous performance targets for continuous improvement of these services and ensure regular monitoring and reporting of the achievement of these targets," he told a special council meeting at Nelson Town Hall last night.

"I would be surprised indeed if this exercise did not result in some radical and perhaps surprising reappraisals of our views, as elected members, when we see the outcome of such extensive consultation."

The meeting agreed to fix the Council Tax for a Band A house, valued at up to £40,000, at £628.87.

Coun Davies said the core mission of the council will continue to be "Putting People First" in everything it does.

He said the authority would continue to give priority to the way it works and bring working partnerships with other organisations to the fore. Coun Davies announced Pendle had received £75,000 from the Lancashire Environment Fund to pay for pilot recycling schemes in Earby and Reedley and a Pendle Pride initiative would mean more clean-up campaigns and a crackdown on litter louts.

"These significant steps will help increase our reputation as the environmentally friendly authority of East Lancashire," he said.

He warned there would be little progress in arresting decline in housing conditions in the private sector.

Coun Davies added: "We begin another financial year in a good position, ready for the new challenges facing local government, with the energy and drive to overcome them."

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