'No' to cash grant is 'sour grapes'

Burnley's Community Forum group is on course to win a £115,000 Millennium Commission grant towards the cost of a new resource centre in Daneshouse and Stoneyholme.

The remainder of the cash will be found by the organisation, which made an independent application for help to the commission.

And although Burnley Council has no say in the final decision, Labour chiefs demanded a full report on the scheme, which they feared would duplicate facilities already provided at a new county community centre nearby.

At the council's general purposes committee, Labour leaders, who have been daggers drawn with the Liberal Democrat-backed Forum group for years, refused to support the project.

They argued that big cash injections were already being put into the Daneshouse district and wanted to see community facilities evenly spread throughout the town. Coun Peter Kenyon said he was not convinced, either, of the Forum's ability to manage such a large project.

Despite assurances on cash, he believed there was a real risk that in future the scheme would seek financial help from the council or county.

Although the council was not being asked to give financial support to the project at the present time, it had every right to express its priorities at a time of competing demands for limited resources.

Liberal Democrat leader Gordon Birtwistle, branded the stance 'sour grapes'

The project, he said, served special needs and did not duplicate facilities at the local community centre.

"The Millennium Commission has found this a worthwhile venture and support it - why can't this council.

"This group has done all this on its own, without asking any help from the council which will not have to pay a penny.

"It will be an asset to the town, yet you cannot find it in yourselves to welcome it. Your attitude is appalling."

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