A ROW has erupted ahead of Thursday's local election after the Liberal Democrats accused their Labour rivals of waging a "dirty tricks" campaign.

Labour election leaflets delivered to thousands of homes claim the Lib Dems would return to fortnightly rubbish collections if they regained control of Bolton Council.

That is denied by the Lib Dems, whose unpopular experiment with fortnightly collections, which aimed to encourage recycling, is seen as one of the main reasons the party was ousted from power by Labour last May.

Between June and September last year, the new administration gradually returned to weekly collections.

Cllr Roger Hayes, deputy leader of the Lib Dems and the party's spokesman for waste and recycling, said: "This is a dirty tricks campaign.

"We would continue with the weekly black bin collection until either the financial position of the council, or Government intervention, meant we had to adopt a different policy."

Cllr Hayes said his party had made its position clear in both an article in The Bolton Journal on March 29 and in its Focus newsletters.

He said the party would have sought to amend next year's budget had it wanted to return to fortnightly collections.

But Cllr Hayes also defended the switch to fortnightly collections, which were last week backed by Labour environment minister Ben Bradshaw, who said it was up to local councils and residents to decide which system they wanted.

Cllr Hayes added: "We believe we were acting in the long-term interests of the borough, both on environmental and cost grounds.

"We are proud that this system helped us increase the eight per cent recycling rate we inherited from Labour to just under 25 per cent in 2005/6 and a monthly high of 35.5 per cent in June 2006.

"However, we accept that a significant proportion of residents did not support our changes and that the Labour administration has a mandate to return to a weekly residual black bin collection."

Defending his party's claims, Labour and council leader Cllr Cliff Morris said: "The Liberal Democrats introduced fortnightly collections and they have never told us they would not reintroduce them.

"All we can do is assume they would.

"We have not seen any statement saying otherwise."