THE WAR of words over big differences in council tax rises is threatening to split the Labour Party in Lancashire.

County Hall leaders are claiming council tax payers outside Blackburn and Darwen will be footing the bill for local government reorganisation.

And they say people not covered by the new unitary authorities - including Hyndburn, Ribble Valley, Burnley, Pendle and Rossendale - are facing double the increase in council tax demands.

Bills in Blackburn and Darwen are likely to rise by only £46 on average compared to an average £120 everywhere else in Lancashire this April.

The average £74 difference will be used to fill a £13 million gap in the county council's budget which county leaders claim is caused by local government reorganisation.

Labour chiefs at Blackburn town hall are furious at the claims and have hit back at ruling group at County Hall.

Tax bills in Blackburn and Darwen are set to rise by 5.5 per cent while Blackpool are considering not increasing their charges.

County Hall chiefs say the shortfall in funding has added an extra six per cent to bills in all other areas.

The figures were set at a finance sub-committee meeting and the decision was also taken to cut services by £21.8 million.

Finance chairman Chris Cheetham said: "We have set our spending at the capping level of £817 million which means we will have to make savings of £22 million.

"The original figure was almost double that and would have meant disaster for Lancashire.

"We always said the council tax payers of Lancashire would have to foot the bill for local government reorganisations and sadly we have been proved right.

"Fortunately this council got a good deal from the Labour Government, we got one of the best settlements in the country.

"But it would still be unreasonable to expect the Labour Government to put 10 years of bad deals right overnight."

But Blackburn with Darwen leader Malcolm Doherty said: "Lancashire's County Council's tax bill increases cannot be seen as a consequence of re-organisation, because Blackburn with Darwen would be seeing a similar increase if that was the case.

"Lancashire's increases are more a result of the unpredictable changes facing local government and the years of pressure put on us by the previous Government.

"More specifically Lancashire County Council's present problems are brought about by their financing on-going revenue expenditure in the last few years by the sale of assets which they can't repeat this year."

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