THE DISCLOSURE today that Lancashire County Council is waging a war of silence with Blackburn as the town edges towards independence from county control is shameful.

For all kinds of discussions and arrangements have to take place for Blackburn to take over services that are currently being run by the county.

It is a massive administration job that needs full co-operation for a smooth transfer to ensue.

But the exact opposite is taking place.

Lancashire just isn't talking to Blackburn, and won't until the final paperwork for the town's breakaway goes through Parliament.

How petty!

Blackburn's bid for unitary status has been through the procedural mill for more than three years and has now been ratified at ministerial level.

All that is awaited is Parliament's rubber stamp.

Lancashire has lost the fight against the town's departure from the county's hegemony.

But it has lost none of the bitterness with which that battle was waged.

What excuse does county leader Louise Ellman offer for this vain and stupid stance?

Why won't she give up?

She claims today that an Audit Commission report on 35 councils which have already become unitary authorities shows that - as Lancashire has maintained all along over its own breakaway towns - granting independence to district councils is not the best way to deliver local government services. But see what else the report says.

It recognises the achievement of councils in maintaining services to the public during the period of upheaval and says that some have had a "bumpier ride" than others on the road to reorganisation.

Is it, then, that Mrs Ellman is determined to prove Blackburn won't deliver - by ensuring it gets the bumpiest possible ride from County Hall?

It certainly looks that way.

But is this really the policy of the county council or the manifestation of its leader's personal rancour at having "her" power base trimmed by the departure of Blackburn and Blackpool?

What is now certain is the truth of the warning by Blackburn MP Jack Straw and Darwen's Janet Anderson at the beginning of this year that Lancashire was bent on mischief to make life difficult for the new unitary authority.

At the time we doubted whether a politician with the stature, experience and ambitions of Mrs Ellman would preside over such devious and spiteful acts.

Now, she has - and shown herself to be small-minded and ungenerous and has stained her ambitions in the process.

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