A POLITICAL row has broken out between two of Burnley's most prominent politicians over controversial plans for one of the town's new super schools' Council leader Stuart Caddy has threatened to report his opposition rival Gordon Birtwistle to the councillors' watchdog the Standards Board for England after the Liberal Democrat leader prompted an inquiry into one of Coun Caddy's decisions.

Coun Birtwistle called in' a decision made by the council's executive not to oppose the sale of land on Towneley wanted by the county council.

The former mayor said the decision by the executive went against a motion passed by full council opposing the sale of the land.

But after the call-in inquiry a special meeting of the better services scrutiny committee on Thursday - decided nothing should be done about Coun Birtwistle's complaint, Coun Caddy launched an attack on his oppostion counterpart.

He said: "This has been a complete waste of time and a trivialisation of the call-in procedure, which is there to make sure decisions which are taken are properly taken.

:Coun Birtwistle once again has shown what a negative politician he is and I am considering reporting him to the Standards Board for misusing the call in process."

Coun Birtwistle said: "I had a legitimate reason for calling this in and if Coun Caddy wants to report me I look forward to it."

Earlier this year, Burnley councillors passed a motion to refuse to sell the land they own to the county council so it could build on the site as part of the £250million Building Schools for the Future scheme.

The plans for the 1,050-place school were criticised by Burnley councillors at their development control committee in January.

But Coun Caddy, who backed that decision, said at a meeting of the executive on March 7 if the flooding concerns were alleviated by the county council the sale of the land would not be opposed.

He said: We are not against the principle of the new school at Towneley. The development control committee was absolutely right in making that decision in January, on the basis that we had insufficient information on the flood risk to the new site, and traffic issues.

"The committee had no option but to make its decision in view of the fact we had to respond within a short deadline as part of theconsultation."

The BSF proposal, which would also see the existing Towneley High School turned into parkland, has caused uproar among residents.