A COUNCIL chief today rubbished claims that Labour-controlled local authorities have run up massive debts.

Figures released by Conservative MP Steven Norris for March 1996 put Blackburn, Burnley and Hyndburn in the North West's list of top ten debtors with a joint deficit of £200 million.

But Blackburn Council leader Coun Malcolm Doherty said the figures did not take account of vast assets.

He added: "I was surprised that Steven Norris has had the gall to claim that Blackburn has a debt of £144.7 million when, in fact, the assets of the council amount to more than £224 million. That is £1,600 per Blackburn resident.

"Over many years, the council, mainly Labour controlled but sometimes Conservative controlled, has invested this money in housing, industrial estates, cultural facilities and the environment.

"If it was up to this Tory Government we would still have outside toilets, a smog-ridden environment and no libraries."

Blackburn came top of the Tory list with Burnley seventh, owing £40.7 million, and Hyndburn, eighth, owing £39.7 million.

In the same figures Lancashire topped the list for county council debts in England with its Labour leaders having run up a debt of £452.3 million. All ten top debtors among North West district councils were Labour controlled.

Tory MP Steve Norris said: "In the great argument about whether tax would rocket under Labour, it is surely worth looking at what they do in practice.

"Today we are publishing new figures which show that when they are in power locally, New Labour means huge New Debt.

"In Lancashire, for example, the debt is comparable to the national debt of Uzbekhistan, which has £465 million of debts.

"These Labour councils have been in the position to put New Labour's principles into practice, and the results are the clearest possible evidence that, as ever, Labour say one thing but do another.

"These new figures melt Gordon Brown's reputation as the 'Iron Chancellor'.

"They show that at local level today, or at any time they hold power nationally, New Labour means new spending and new debt."

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