BURNLEY Council has officially said it wants to merge with its Pendle counterpart as part of a proposed shake-up of local government.

Last night members of the council's decision-making executive approved plans to enter into talks with Pendle to form a new unitary authority.

The move comes days after Pendle's executive declared it wanted to team up with Burnley to form a new super authority' covering the two boroughs.

The pair will now enter into talks and draw up a business plan to see how viable the new council would be before deciding whether to apply to the Government to merge the authorities.

If successful the new council would become responsible for all services including ones such as education, transport and highways currently run by Lancashire County Council (LCC).

A report to councillors at the meeting said Burnley wanted to break away from LCC because the current structure was confusing and decisions were made from outside the borough.

The leader of the council, Coun Gordon Birtwistle, said the recent decision of the local health scrutiny committee - which included county councillors - to stop treating 999 emergencies in Burnley and send all cases to Blackburn, and the county council's bid to shut the waste recycling plant in Padiham, highlighted the need to break from county hall.

He said: "The county council health scrutiny committee destroyed our blue-light emergencies and its environment committee is shutting down the waste disposal plant at Padiham.

"That's enough for me to think we are better off without them."

The restructure talks follow a Government White Paper setting out options for change.

It allows for more unitary councils to manage and deliver all services in an area or a revised version of the two-tier structure which could see more services provided by district councils - such as rubbish collections and planning -transferred to county councils.

Burnley and Pendle have until January 25 to apply to the Government to be considered for unitary status. Although it is not known how much it will cost, the first phase of the application should be less than £10,000.

The bill will be split between the two authorities, although it is unclear whether the Government will approve the plans because changes could make the remaining county council structure unworkable.

Burnley Council's chief executive Steve Rumbelow said the council had to team up with Pendle because the authority would not have enough cash to provide all services alone.

Decisions applications will be made in March.