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  • "
    Good call wrote:
    Your ferret stinks wrote:
    The sooner this happens the better for all society and the planet!
    There are too many people on the face of the earth taking and giving nothing back so somthing has to be done by somone.
    In years gone by war and plagues kept the numbers down but not so now.
    Bring it on i say and stop holding a loaded gun to peoples heads with this infowars claptrap and just pull the trigger if youv'e got what it takes?
    Me on the other hand will just Bogard this joint, open another tinnie and wait for the bang!
    Why don't you research it for yourself instead of calling it "claptrap".
    Because its exactly that 'claptrap'!
    Watch out there's somone behind you! and watch out for the flowers cos i swear there going to get you....yeah"
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Benefit refugees bring cost fears to Pendle

10:00pm Saturday 23rd June 2012 in News Photograph of the Author By Tyrone Marshall , Reporter

BENEFIT refugees who converge on Pendle could cost the borough at least £1,000 a time, a senior councillor has warned.

Town halls will assume control for administering council tax benefit from next April – and they have already been told they must make cost savings of 10 per cent.

And Coun David Whipp, cabinet member for community safety, is concerned that families from southern towns and cities, attracted by lower rents, will be tempted to relocate to Pendle.

Council chiefs confirmed that taxpayers would have to bear the brunt of any new claimants, which would work out at least £1,000, for the lowest-banded properties in the borough.

Coun Whipp said: “There is clearly potential for an influx of benefit refugees and that would have an impact on the number of council tax claimants.”

Currently there are around 700 empty properties in the borough and it is likely that the grants due to Pendle will either be frozen or reduced in the coming years, councillors heard.

Finance head Dean Langton said: “The additional cost would have to be borne for new claimants by current council tax payers or the council.

"This would mean we’d have to consider whether we will have to reduce the services the council offers or increase council tax levels.”

Coun Whipp claimed new council leader Coun Joe Cooney had declared, at a previous executive meeting, that Pendle was ‘open for business’ with regards to new arrivals. But Coun Cooney said this was not the intention behind his remarks.

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