WHEN it comes to new technology and cyberspace, Pendle is in a black hole, according to the area's MP.

Gordon Prentice told the newly-designated Culture, Media and Sports minister Chris Smith that Pendle should not miss out when digital television and radio arrives - because our licence fee money is every bit as good as anywhere else in the country and we should get the same service.

The MP claims the new signals for digital television and radio could pass Pendle when they are switched on in the new year.

He said: "Pendle has been a broadcasting black hole for years, but what the BBC is now doing is simply rubbing salt into the wound.

"We all pay the same licence fee, so I want to see the digital services rolled out across the UK as quickly as humanly possible so no-one is left behind.

"I don't want people in Pendle waiting until the millennium for services that will be available next year in places such as Leeds, Manchester and London."

In the Commons, Mr Prentice told the minister that people in North East Lancashire were fed up of being treated as country cousins, with no Channel 5, very little cable and left behind at the digital switch on.

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