A LOWLY-paid gardening vacancy has caused a right stink with a landscaping company boss who claims he was offering 'mower.'

Now angry Jason Gooch - owner of Bedrock - says he has ditched plans to take on a teenage worker because of the mix up.

The firm was criticised when the vacancy for a 16-17-year-old at just £1 an hour was placed in Chorley JobCentre - attracting just one applicant!

But Mr Gooch says Preston-based Bedrock was offering up to £60 plus overtime for a 35-hour week and an apprenticeship.

And he said the vacancy should just have gone to the careers service, which it did later.

After the controversy erupted, Mr Gooch claimed he was telephoned with the offer of a 20-year-old work experience person for just £35 a week. Bedrock has now withdrawn the vacancy.

This week a high-ranking spokesman for CareerLink, which runs career services for West Lancashire, admitted there had been a "misunderstanding" but could not discuss the details.

Mr Gooch stormed: "The vacancy shouldn't have gone in the JobCentre for a start off. I wanted it to go to the careers office. It was a low paid job for someone more like a school leaver.

"It was put in the Job Centre which I was disgusted at. It was all a load of rubbish and I've withdrawn it."

He said he would not be accepting the latest offer for the position, adding: "There's someone out of a job now."

The trainee position would have involved gardening, fencing, weeding, turfing and tree cutting.

Reports about the job appeared nationally and regionally both in the press and on radio.

Meanwhile The Greater Manchester Low Pay Unit, which recently conducted a survey on vacancies at Chorley JobCentre, will be invited to go through their findings at the next Chorley Borough Council's economic development sub-committee meting in a few months and compare Chorley with other towns.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.