BURNLEY MP Peter Pike has "quick-stepped" up his campaign to save an East Lancashire school's banned Sunday tea dances.

He has sent a 250-signature petition in favour of the Sabbath shindig to Blackburn MP and Home Secretary Jack Straw after Burnley council forced the organisers to shift their Christmas celebration to Thursday.

Mr Pike is also sending the document to the borough council in a bid to persuade them to relent on the issue while the law is changed.

He is astounded and angry that the council and the full force of the law can end the weekly tea dance at Barden High School after seven years.

Despite the pleasure given to some 130 regulars, mostly pensioners, Burnley Council chiefs ordered the events to stop because they breached the Sunday Observance Act 1780.

Mr Pike, who is to meet one of Mr Straw's Home Office MInisters to discuss the issue, hopes that the law can be changed through the use of the Commons Deregulation Committee of which he is now chairman.

But he accepts that even this will take time and hopes to broker a compromise where the council allows the dances to take place following a government commitment to amend the law.

Mr Pike, who opposed the legalisation of Sunday Trading, said it was absurd that big supermarket chains were able to flout that law and get it changed but an innocent little dance got banned.

He said: "The Government are looking at the issue of Sunday dancing. I have received a petition from constituents with more than 250 signatures asking the Government to repeal the Act.

"I will be forwarding a copy of this petition to both the Home Office and Burnley Council. I shall be meeting Ministers soon to discuss this issue."

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