A ROW has broken out at Blackburn town hall after Liberal Democrats demanded more power as the only mainstream party to gain seats in elections earlier this month.

The argument stems around the appointment of councillors to committees and outside bodies like the police authority and community associations.

Lib Dems gained two seats, Tories lost two, and Labour lost two but the Liberal Democrats claim the other parties have refused to give up places on committees and outside bodies.

Coun David Foster, the new Lib Dem leader on the council, said: "The Lib Dems have 13 seats and the Tories 15, but despite this they are happy to have twice as many chairmen and vice chairmen as the Lib Dems.

"They also had twice as many seats on outside bodies and only gave up two of them to the Lib Dems."

The council also has 33 Labour, members, two England First and an independent.

As Labour has control of the council many positions on outside bodies automatically fall to them, as the roles have to be filled with executive board members.

Coun Kate Hollern, Labour's leader of the council, said: "Everything that has been achieved in this borough has been achieved with the agreement of all political parties."

Tory leader Colin Rigby said the reality was that Labour control the council so will always get the lion's share of seats.

He added: "It's finished as far as I am concerned, it was voted through and that's the end of it."

But he questioned the number of bodies the council sends representatives to.

Coun Foster added: "The Tories are being hypocritical. They joined with us to argue that they should have committee places allocated proportionally and now have turned round to us and said they refuse to do the same for us.

"It is a sad case of do what I say, not what I do'. Proportionality is OK for them but not for the Lib Dems."