WORLD Cup winners France went on their victory tour through Paris - in a bus built in East Lancashire! The open-topped vehicle used to carry the French football team was designed and built by Blackburn-based firm East Lancashire Coach Builders. The firm's
A ROSSENDALE solicitor who was behind the wheel of a car involved in an accident with a 77-year-old pedestrian has been cleared by a jury of causing death by careless driving when under the influence of alcohol. Vanessa Smith, 39, of Thistlemont Mews,
YOUNGSTERS in Pendle joined forces with the police to collect rubbish from their estates and earn themselves a trip to Camelot theme park. Two litter picks were held, one on Colne's North Valley Estate, and the second on the Hodge House Estate, Nelson
BURNLEY may be able to stop Ronnie Jepson from waging his one-man war against the club - by signing him themselves. Jepson has developed an uncanny knack of scoring against the Clarets, a record he continued for Oldham in the 3-3 cliff-hanger at Boundary
BLACKBURN traders have joined colleagues in other Lancashire towns to fight the threat of Manchester's new shopping centre at Trafford. A £1.5 million campaign has been launched by the North West Towns Consortium with 28 member towns bidding to reinforce
MEN in East Lancashire are controlling and using children as prostitutes without fear of prosecution according to a shock report published by a national charity. Barnardo's says it has found evidence of child prostitution in every part of the country,
KEVIN GALLACHER has made it a quartet of senior Blackburn Rovers players now recovering from surgery after undergoing an operation on a troublesome groin injury. And that could rule the Scottish World Cup striker out of the start of the new Premiership
ENVIRONMENT chiefs received more than 230 complaints about haze and odour from a Clitheroe cement works after ordering the firm to clean up its act, a meeting heard. But the smell from Castle Cement was only considered a breach of the order on one occasion
A GUITAR-PLAYING surveyor has set his sights on chart-topping success with a rousing CD about the countryside. And 32-year-old William McClintock Bunbury even hopes to give the Spice Girls something to think about in the process. By day he works for Clitheroe
Valerie Cowan Surfs the Net JUST over a year ago, the Open University tested the concept of distance learning via the Net. Such was the appeal of being able to log-on, the OU has extended the service, from just being offered to UK students, to anyone
CHARLENE Symes was in such a hurry to enter this world that she was born in an ambulance on a motorway hard shoulder. Two ambulancemen who were taking her parents, Brian and Sharon Byrnes, to Fairfield Hospital, Bury, had to cope with the delivery when
DARWEN schoolboy James Franklin was smiling again when education chiefs managed to find him a new school to help him with his language disorder. The 10-year-old's family was stunned when Lancashire County Council refused to fund a 168 per cent rise in
OUT into the country are despatched the Tories' 162 MPs and Shadow Cabinet spokesmen on a meet-the-people listening mission - and with firm instructions from leader William Hague not to argue back at these sessions. The message is, then, that the customer
THE enormity of the £56billion increase Chancellor Gordon Brown has signalled over the next three years may perhaps best be measured by what it is worth if it was funded directly from extra income tax - a staggering 30p in the pound. And with that in
I WONDER how many people, other than members of the Orange Order, realised that it is in fact William III who is displayed on the banners of that order, not William IV, as I stated (Letters, July 6). In fact, I wonder if anyone was really interested.
STONE by stone, Burnley is slowly saying a controversial farewell to the landmark St James spire. The Grade II listed spire is being demolished to make way for the £12.5 million redevelopment of the Curzon Square area of the town by shopping centre owners
YOUNG volunteers will be bridge building to give better access to one of the finest areas of the Forest of Burnley. Burnley Youth Green Action will be at Pot Oven Farm, Holme Chapel, from August 3-5 clearing paths and building a bridge to allow public
COUNCILLOR Tony Harrison's criticism (Letters, June 29) of your newspaper for its reporting of Burnley Council Labour group's support for Coun Eddie Fisk as the next mayor, was itself misleading, confused and inaccurate. When you report news from so-called
UNDER-threat Lucas workers have had their jobs safeguarded for another two months, it has been revealed. The temporary reprieve for 70 jobs at the Burnley aerospace plant follows a new order from Ford USA for the natural gas bottles used to power environmentally-friendly
HEALTH chiefs today unveiled a radical move to allow East Lancashire GPs to perform operations normally carried out by hospital doctors. The move is among a series of new measures to try to reduce hospital waiting lists. It will involve GPs performing
A MERCY dash patient underwent a heart transplant operation hours after a police car taking him to hospital was involved in an accident. Brian Ellis, from Colne, was travelling in the back of a Lancashire Constabulary Rover to meet up with an ambulance
GERRY Harrison has revealed that Burnley did everything in their powers to keep him at Turf Moor. But the chance to join the biggest club in the Nationwide League tipped the balance Sunderland's way and prompted him to join Peter Reid's Premiership hopefuls
Nature Watch, with Ron Freethy LANCASHIRE is fast developing a skill in developing green oases in the heart of old industrial areas. One of these is Strinesdale, which is a 50 acre reserve on the outskirts of Oldham. In 1992, two drinking water reservoirs
IT'S RAINING again... and don't we know it! As East Lancashire splashes its way through soggy July after the third wettest June on record, weather forecasters say there is no sign of any blue skies ahead. And if that wasn't depressing enough, this is
HUNDREDS of textile jobs in East Lancs could be threatened if plans to increase the cost of imported cotton go ahead. Foreign Secretary Robin Cook and European Minister Doug Henderson both attacked the European Commission for imposing hefty duties on
TWO attempts have been made to set fire to a house in Hereford Street, Nelson. Fire crews were called shortly after 11.30pm yesterday and found that a fire has been started which destroyed a large cushion and 12 square metres of carpet and smoke-logged
A SMALL, but revealing, insight into government-by-spin comes with reading the small print of the initiative to make children better at sums. Remember the one that announced last week that children would soon be reciting the multiplication tables once
YOUNG and old will run together during the traditional Darwen Gala Tower Race. The event is being staged by Darwen Dashers on Saturday, August 15. Junior and senior runs will start at Bold Venture Park gates with the senior race climbing Belgrave Road
AN adopted Australian is going home sporting square eyes after viewing 90 hours of World Cup coverage. Football fanatic Paul Muldoon, 31, flew halfway across the world to see the France '98 matches on TV. He only missed four of the 64 games during his
A TEENAGER was engulfed in flames following a petrol fire which started while he played with friends in a store compound. Gavin Gallagher is being treated at Manchester's Booth Hall Hospital following the incident last night. Police and fire chiefs have
BLACKBURN Rovers' bid to build a new club shop, themed sports bar and giant screen at Ewood Park will tomorrow again come before the local council. Its planning committee will be presented with applications, on which they delayed a decision in June to
Exclusive by Pete Oliver PETER Shackleton insists his bid to take control of Burnley FC is still on-going. A lack of apparent progress in recent months suggested the deal to buy a majority stake in the club was dead in the water. But Shackleton, fronting
GERRY Harrison has revealed that Burnley did everything in their powers to keep him at Turf Moor. But the chance to join the biggest club in the Nationwide League tipped the balance Sunderland's way and prompted him to join Peter Reid's Premiership hopefuls
ANGRY motorbike dealer Phil Rostron has vowed to quit Blackburn if the council resumes court proceedings against him for displays outside his shop. But he says he intends to create a storm of controversy before he leaves which will bring the council's
Royal Air Forces Association meet Polish Ex-Servicemen's Club, Shear Bank Road, Blackburn, 8pm. American Line Dancing, King George's Hall, Northgate, Blackburn. Lessons 7.30-8.15pm, followed by dancing until 11pm. Blackburn Market Hall open from 10am
THE 1998 Open Championship at Royal Birkdale will be dominated by the game's big hitters. That is the verdict of European Tour professional Ged Furey. The Pleasington ace, who knows Royal Birkdale like the back of his hand, believes the long par fives
ANDY Flintoff today shrugged off his best bowling performance for Lancashire and said: "I didn't bowl all that well." The 20-year-old, who has been in sensational batting form this season, confirmed his all-round rating by taking three key Worcestershire
YOUR Opinion and front-page report (LET, July 9) on the call for the Church of England's wedding rite to recognise sex before marriage and illegitimacy raise the question of the Church's position in society today. As you pointed out, this call, which
BURNLEY Labour Party activist Carole Galbraith is bidding to become a North West Euro MP. She has been short-listed by the party in the Lancashire Central constituency - which includes Burnley, Pendle and the Ribble Valley - presently held by Labour's
PATIENTS in need of emergency treatment at Burnley General Hospital are now assessed by a state of the art computer program. The program called Emergency Triage is up and running in only a handful of hospitals in Britain. In its six weeks at Burnley,
HYNDBURN councillors have paid tribute to a former colleague who died less than a year after taking early retirement. Roy Connell, who worked as a town hall courier for 23 years, died recently aged 63 after retiring just 10 months ago. At a meeting of
CRIME in Accrington town centre will increase following the axeing of patrols by uniformed community safety wardens, it was claimed today. The warning was sounded as borough councillors voted to keep free parking in Accrington, almost certainly spelling
THOUSANDS of firms in East Lancashire are being urged to get their skates on if they recently received a rating form. A nationwide review of rateable values on business premises is being carried out. But the man leading the project in the North West predicted
EVEN if he hadn't had his sinuses fixed, I am sure William Hague could still easily smell the stench coming out of the cash-for-access affair. With his accusation that Tony Blair had surrounded himself with "feather-bedding, pocket-lining, money-grabbing
ON goes the royalling of Camilla as the contrived leaking of her "secret" meeting with Prince William for the first time consumes acres of tabloid pages. Notably, all this was coupled with a propaganda offensive on her and Charles's behalf. Commentators
TO PLENTY of fanfare in advance, a crackdown is announced on benefit cheats costing £7billion a year. Darned right, too - as this means we are now being robbed to the tune of £125 a head. But while it is all very well for the government to tighten up
A MISSING man was found in a mosque just yards from the factory where a pool of blood was discovered. Former factory worker Murbarak Musa Patel was discovered with a serious wound to his left wrist just hours after detectives issued an urgent appeal in
