OPPOSITION councillors today hit back at claims that they are ineffective - insisting they do a very good job.

Conservatives and Liberal Democrats were left stunned by Blackburn with Darwen Council leader Kate Hollern's plea for effective opponents, reported in yesterday's Lancashire Evening Telegraph.

She told the Telegraph she had commissioned a guide on how to be a good councillor in a bid to attract 'new blood' on to the opposition benches.

In her most vociferous broadside at opposition councillors, she said she felt more challenged when debating policies with teenagers on the local youth forum than with councillors in Blackburn Town Hall.

Her comments today prompted an icy response from backbench opposition councillors.

Conservative spokesman on regeneration, Coun Alan Cottam, said: "I feel she should look in her own back garden first.

"Some of her councillors don't know what day it is when it comes to what is going on in their own wards.

"If the scrutiny committees, which are supposed to monitor what the Labour executive does, was controlled by the opposition and not Labour, I think she'd be under more pressure."

Coun Roy Davies, a Lib Dem councillor first elected in 2004, said: "She doesn't know what goes on in scrutiny meetings, or the questions we ask.

"Last year, at one of our scrutiny committees, we forced the hospital trust into admitting it had plans to get rid of 10 per cent of its beds. That's something which really matters to people.

"Very little of our time is spent in the Town Hall, because we are out and about representing the people who elected us, which is our job."

Coun Fred Gollop, who took one of the Higher Croft, Blackburn, seats off Labour in 2004, said: "Her comments simply aren't fair and very out of character for her."

Tory councillor Michael Lee, so far the only opposition councillor to exercise his right to ask a question at the Labour-controlled executive board since it was introduced in 2002, said: "The new system has taken some getting used to but is weighted in the ruling group's favour.

"Rather than the presumption of sharing information with everyone, we now have a situation where we have to fight for everything we can to just to know what is going on.

"I think Coun Hollern may live to regret what she has said, because we are already planning to ask more questions at executive board and put Labour under more pressure."

Coun Hollern said: "If my comments lead to more apparent opposition, then I welcome that."