A PARK supporters' group has criticised Burnley residents for their "apathy" after missing out in a phone poll to win £50,000 of lottery cash.

The Friends of Queen's Park, Burnley, had got to the final eight in the race for money from the People's Millions lottery fund to build a cycle track.

But the group was beaten by a project to upgrade a youth and community building in Liverpool in a television phone vote.

This prompted Derek Tranmer from the group, to tell of his disappointment at a lack of interest shown by residents.

And the Nelson-based nursery school, Rainbows, also lost out in the finals of the cash competition.

Rainbows was beaten in its quest for a new sensory room by a bid from a special school in Timpareley.

A spokesman said: "We are of course all very disappointed that we have not got through at this stage.

"But we know that another very worthy cause has received some useful funds as a result, and we wish them all the very best with their project."

Every day for last week two good causes in each ITV region went head-to-head for cash.

Derek Tranmer, of the Friends of Queen's Park, said he had been disappointed by the lack of interest shown by residents.

He said: "I really think the people of Burnley have a lot of apathy.

"They want everything to happen but they don't want to do anything.

"We had been round to all sorts of people and asked them to bring their kids when they were filming our bid.

"They all said they would but in the end only two turned up, and one of them was a friend of my wife's.

"We were really very disappointed."

The group took another blow when it realised that the Charter Walk shopping centre was holding its late-night shopping and Christmas lights switch-on at the same time as the park's bid was on TV, on Thursday evening.

Mr Tranmer said: "Because they were out in the shopping centre, people didn't get the phone number to vote for us.

"We got down there in the morning and gave out papers with the number on.

"But we just didn't get enough people."

The group will be meeting this week to discuss other ways of raising the cash for the cycleway, which would also be used for children's cycling lessons.