ELECTIONS MAY 2002: The Battle For BurnleyThe East Lancashire town of Burnley has a population of 91,000. In the past it has traditionally been a Labour stronghold, but now the local party barely manages to hold the balance of power with their 25 councillors, while the opposition is made up from 11 Independents, 9 Liberal Democrats and 3 Conservatives.Ward boundary changes made this year mean that the old 16 wards have been reduced to 15, and the whole council (now 45 seats) is up for re-election in May. Burnley has an ethnic minority community approaching 8%, which is made up, in the main, of Pakistani and Bangladeshi economic migrants. They almost all live in the Daneshouse and Stoneyholme ward of the town and it is this community and their ward that will provide much of the political debate in the run-up to polling day. The May campaign will be the hardest-fought local election in the history of the town and, although they presently have no representation on the council, it will be the British National Party providing the challenge to New Labour. LABOUR'S preferential funding for Daneshouse Ward will be one of the key issues in the 'Battle for Burnley', and there can seldom have been such a clear-cut example of a Council's biased funding for one particular ward and one particular community. Since 1997 the Council have invested £8.9 million in housing in Daneshouse and Stoneyholme. The rest of the Borough of Burnley has received just £5.3million. They have directed 62% of housing investment on just 6% of the population, while the remaining 94% of the people of Burnley have had to share 38% of this targeted spending. But that's not all. Over the last ten years, there has been more additional capital expenditure on Daneshouse ward than any other ward in Burnley. Over 12% of the total budget has been spent on Daneshouse, yet less than 1% has been spent on the areas of Rosehill, Burnley Wood, Lowerhouse and Brunshaw. This lack of investment in the rest of Burnley has left tragic consequences, and no where can this be seen better than in Burnley Wood. Here it feels as though the people have been abandoned. The lack of investment has left the community vulnerable to the ravages of crime, drugs and anti-social behaviour and, just as the buildings around them have been left to crumble and decay, so has the social fabric of this community. The spending figures themselves are a damning indictment of New Labour in Burnley, but it is the results of this spending, visible for all to see, that will probably provide many of the nails in Labour's political coffin in Burnley. Danehouse's pristine streets of refurbished houses, with their Sky dishes standing to attention in rows of ten or twenty, resemble a North London mews rather than a Northern mill town. The bustling shops, community centres and children's playgrounds, are unmistakable signs of a prosperous area. What a difference to the community three minutes down the road, for when you reach Burnley Wood it's difficult to believe that you are in the same town. The deprivation here is heartbreaking. It has been Labour's (aided by the Liberal Democrats) preferential treatment of one specific community that has stirred the voters of Burnley to break out of their usual political party straight-jackets. At first, in desperation, they turned to an array of Independents espousing BNP policies, and then to the British National Party themselves. In May 2000 a BNP candidate polled 20% of the vote in Fulledge ward (one of the wards lost in the redrawn boundaries) and then in June last year, at the General Election, the party polled 4,151 votes (11.3%). In November, in three local council elections, BNP candidates polled 19%, 23% and 19% of the vote, and in the latter contest beat both Liberal Democrat and Conservative candidates. Labour's preferential funding has opened the eyes of the majority population of Burnley to further concerns posed by immigrant settlement. They have watched with consternation the change in the ethnic make-up of the nearby town of Nelson, where in the last ten years the ethnic minority has grown from 10% to 50% of the total population, and two out of three babies born in the town are now to mothers who do not come from Britain. Nelson has also become the focal centre for refugee settlement, and this too has sparked off worries for its near neighbour. The housing of asylum seekers in Burnley, although not in significant numbers, has now become a major issue. The immigrant birth-rate, currently 15 times that of the white population, is being openly discussed for the first time, and there is vocal opposition to plans for a new Mosque in the town. Labour's ten years of positive discrimination has certainly rebounded on them with a vengeance. Political correctness is now a dirty word in the town and any favouritism shown to the ethnic minorities, whether by the council, the courts, the police or in the media, is seized upon and exposed. There were howls of derision when the council launched its Task Force to look into the summer disturbances, because it was made up with 40% representation from the ethnic communities despite them making up only 8% of the population. A letter in the local paper summed up the views of many, "I believe that the Task Force is largely made up of the groups who caused the problems; left-wingers and liberals (who allowed immigration against the wishes of the majority) and the immigrants themselves." The Burnley & Pendle Branch of the BNP have been working tirelessly over the last three years to build up a strong local base and they enter these elections better prepared than ever before. At the time of going to press they have candidates for every ward in the town, including Daneshouse, and are backing them with a campaign that includes a full colour election address. The local party has an independent website, Burnley Bravepages (www.burnley.bravepages.com), supporting their election effort, and canvassing is under way in most wards. Simon Bennett, the Burnley and Pendle BNP's Acting Organiser, has a clear goal for the coming campaign but refuses to be drawn into any predictions. "We would like to make an improvement on the 11.3% we polled in Burnley at the General Election. By contesting every ward we will be able to see exactly how our standing is with the people of Burnley across the whole constituency. The votes we polled in November in those three council by-elections exceded our expectations and if we could maintain or improve on those results as well, it would be a great achievement." The Battle for Burnley has only just begun, but for the first time in decades the ruling Labour Party faces its biggest challenge ever. They have never been so unpopular in the town and the Burnley Bravepages website captured the reason for this startling decline in grass roots support, in a recent posting, "Generations of true Burnley people, families who sacrificed their loved ones throughout the last century to keep Britain free, have been ignored and their community left to die. They have been passed over time and time again by Burnley's Labour councillors who have preferred to lavish their funds on a newly arrived community of economic migrants from Pakistan and Bangladesh."
DANESHOUSE: It's pristine streets resemble those of a North London mews, rather than a Northern mill town.
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