A PRINTING boss is blaming Burnley Council for breaking promises, forcing his company to consider moving out of the town.

Mark Clarkson blames the council for placing the jobs of 60 workers at Lords Printers in jeopardy.

He claims he was promised £250,000 towards relocating the business, but that was reduced to just £38,000. Now the proposed premises on Heasandford Industrial Estate have been taken over by another firm and Mr Clarkson, managing director of UK Print Group which bought Lords last year, is left to debate the future of the current premises, a former textile mill on Trafalgar Street. The company has other factories in Blackburn and Accrington where work could be transferred, but Mr Clarkson said if that happened it was unlikely there would be jobs for all of the present workforce.

He said: "Ideally I would like to keep the business in Burnley, but we need more help towards any move.

"To have relocated to Heasandford would have cost £1m for the site, £750,000 for machinery and £250,000 for removals.

"We need immediate investment in machinery and the building leaks like a sieve.

"We will have to get something sorted out during the summer because the building is virtually impossible to work in during winter."

Head of the council's economic development unit Hugh Simpson said: "All grants are restricted by European regulations and the amount of money available.

"We have offered Lords as much as we can within the regulations - £38,000 for phase one - and we hoped to be able to support further phases as they developed."

The UK Print Group, which employs another 250 at various sites in Britain, bought Lords when the firm was insolvent and the supervisors running the business were considering calling in the receivers.

Now it is liquid to the tune of £90,000.

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