SKATEBOARDING and tennis may be as different as chalk and cheese, but it hardly follows that putting the two pursuits side by side is a recipe for conflict.

Yet such fears were expressed to Burnley councillors in a bid to stop a skateboard park being created for youngsters alongside the tennis courts at the town's Queen's Park.

It would, warned John Hill, chairman of Burnley Evening Tennis League, create a "cauldron of trouble" and local residents also voiced concerns about noise and the number of youngsters visiting the site.

But councillors have decided to press on with the £236,000 skateboard scheme, which will occupy two of the park's tennis courts while the remaining four are upgraded. And they are right to do so. For while tennis players and residents may envisage negative results, there are, surely, positive aspects to the plan that merit its go-ahead.

Not least is the potential for reducing juvenile nuisance in Burnley by getting teenagers off the streets and giving them something to do that they like.

Also, there is bound to be a gain in removing skateboarders from the bandstand area in town-centre St James' Street where shoppers have to dodge them at present.

The council is living up to a social responsibility by pressing on with this plan -- and its opponents should give it the chance to prove itself.