A ROW has broken out after figures showed how badly Burnley had been hit by the recession.

The number of benefit claimants in the borough have risen from 31.1 per cent in 2008 to 34 per cent, in Bank Hall, Trinity and Daneshouse, from May to July 2009.

And the numbers of people applying for jobseeker's allowance have increased by 690, or nearly 40 per cent, from the end of 2008 to latest figures for winter 2009.

Unemployment in Burnley and Padiham is around 4.6 per cent, compared to 3.3 per cent in the last few months of 2008. This compares to a national average of 4.1 per cent.

Decades of decline for old-fashioned industries ranging from coal and steel to machine and plant manufacturing, by successive governments, has been blamed.

But hopes are high that the arrival of the new £81million college and university campus, development of Burnley Bridge Business Park near Hapton and the revamp of the former Michelin site at Heasandford could help the borough turn the corner.

Coun Julie Cooper, Labour’s parliamentary candidate for Burnley, said: “I want to see a highly skilled workforce contributing to a vital local economy and enjoying a high degree of personal job satisfaction. training and education is undoubtedly the key."

Mrs Cooper has pointed towards investments in Building Schools for the Future programme locally and the new college and university campus as key catalysts.

She added: “The university will soon encompass a centre for advanced manufacturing and employers throughout the north have already shown an interest in working with the university to develop the skills needed to bring advanced manufacturing to Burnley.”

But council leader Coun Gordon Birtwistle, the Liberal Democrat candidate, blamed the Conservative and Labour parties.

He said: “The way to reverse this trend is by changing the economic structure of this country, away from banking and finance to traditional manufacturing.

“Forty years of Tory and Labour governments have destroyed our manufacturing base, particularly advanced manufacturing.

“The college and university are working on training, there is Burnley Bridge and the former Michelin site, which the Northwest Development Agency is backing.”