A MAJOR initiative designed to give residents in Blackburn and Darwen a say in the future of their council has now been completed.

And town hall bosses are busy handling the hundreds of replies from people from all walks of life.

Teachers, parents, employees and local firms were asked to comment on plans for the single status council which will be launched in 12 months.

Others who took part in the initiative included ethnic minority groups, conservation organisations, the police, fire chiefs, cyclists and pedestrian groups and trade unions. A series of high level meetings were also held to help town hall bosses and councillors draw up policies which will help shape the borough's new all purpose council.

Blackburn council recently published a series of 11 green papers filled with ideas on how services should be run by the new unitary authority.

The views gathered during the series of meetings and the public consultations will be taken into account when 11 white policy papers are drafted later this month.

Local government re-organisation chairman Gail Barton said: "We received some very high quality, detailed replies to which a great deal of thought has been clearly given.

"Some replies came from people and organisations who are the key to the service provision in question.

"The responses will greatly assist in the drawing up of policies, procedures and practices for the new authority.

"We are very grateful to those who took the time to prepare these detailed views.

"We were keen to make sure that the people of this borough who supported the council's successful bid for unitary status were able to have their say on the way the new unitary authority is run."

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