THE leader of Blackburn with Darwen Council is locked in a war of words with a Tory MP over referring to the authority as ‘Blackburn Council’.

Borough leader, Cllr Mohammed Khan has hit out at Darwen MP Jake Berry over the incorrect title. The dispute came to a head at the authority’s full meeting.

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Cllr Khan told borough Tory group leader John Slater: “Tell Jake Berry to stop referring to Blackburn Council. It is Blackburn with Darwen Council. He is trying to divide Blackburn and Darwen and they are one borough.”

Cllr Khan had been angered by the MP asking David Cameron at Prime Minister’s Questions: “Will you work with me, and literally thousands of Darreners, to stop Blackburn Council going ahead with its plan to bulldoze Darwen’s three-day market?”

Mr Berry responded: “Back in 1997 there was a huge fuss about the renaming of ‘Blackburn Council’ to ‘Blackburn with Darwen’. Since then many of our elected officials seem to have forgotten that Darwen exists. I will make no apologies for referring to it as ‘Blackburn Council’ because ‘Blackburn’ is pretty much all they seem to be interested in.

“There’s the £30million spent on the regeneration of Blackburn town centre, £8million that went on Blackburn Market, £5million towards Blackburn’s new bus station, £13.5million on a brand new leisure centre in Blackburn, £12million on thenew Link Road in Blackburn and only the other month £1.5 million for King Georges Hall. In Darwen all the council seem interested in is knocking down our three-day market without a clue what to replace it with. Not one Labour councillor from Darwen has been given any serious decision-making role so is it any wonder that all the money gets spent in Blackburn?”

“So until there’s a little less ‘Blackburn’ and a lot more ‘Darwen’ I will continue to stand up for the town I represent.”

Cllr Khan said: “His claims are not true. We have built a new leisure centre, new schools and a new health centre in Darwen and we plan to invest millions in any replacement for the three-day market when we have consulted the people of the town about a replacement.”

Cllr Slater said: “He has a perfect right to call it Blackburn council when it ignores Darwen.

“Not a single Labour member of the ruling borough executive board is from Darwen.”

Blackburn MP and former borough leader Kate Hollern said: “Jake refers to Blackburn council to be divisive and for narrow political gain for himself and his party.”