GO-GREEN councillors were today branded hypocrites after calling on people to recycle their Christmas trees while the borough's were sent to Norfolk.

Blackburn with Darwen Council has been encouraging people to take their old Christmas trees to recycling centres where they can be chipped into small pieces and used as mulch on the borough's parks during the summer.

But it emerged today that the 11 large Christmas trees the council placed around the borough won't come to the same end -- in Blackburn at least.

They are being taken back to Norfolk, where the council bought them, and used as mulch at a private forestry to help grow next year's trees.

Last month the council was criticised after it bought Christmas trees from a private firm in Norfolk rather than locally. Council bosses confirmed two officers were dispatched to East Anglia to measure the trees before delivery.

The cost of taking the trees back to Norfolk is covered by the £7,000 the borough paid for the trees, but councillors say the ruling Labour group has missed a chance to lead the Green revolution.

Now a call has been made for permanent spruces to be planted where the Christmas trees go, so they can be decorated once a year.

Coun Andy Kay, executive member for regeneration at the council, said: "The company which provides the Christmas trees collects and recycles them as part of the contract. They then use the remaining mulch as fertiliser for the new trees they grow for the following year."

But Conservative Coun Paul McGurty said: "The council is about to force the residents of 12,000 homes within the borough to recycle waste by providing them with separate bins to separate household waste. They can't just go and get someone else to do it for them.

"The council is not doing all it could to follow its own policy. It seems that the members subscribe to the philosophy of do as I say and not as I do.

"It is hypocritical to ask people to take their trees to a recycling point for the good of the environment and the borough and then get a firm to take the council's trees to another part of the country.

"Just think of the pollution caused by lorries bringing the trees to us and now taking them away.

"The council should have bought locally. By not chopping down the trees here, the council has just made sure that the borough has not benefited from these trees in any way, not even in the environmental sense.

"One solution to the fiasco would be to plant the trees in their locations on a permanent basis so no recycling is needed and there would be an annual saving to the taxpayer of around £15,000."