BLACKBURN Labour leader's defence of the town's atrocious debt is pitiable (LET, February 10). He claims the town's assets are down to investments. That's just like the rubbish you will find on every street corner.

Has he never heard of inflation? Had its rapid rise in property and land prices not taken place the town would have been bankrupt.

How much of the debt is incurred for the thousands of houses this council built and then knocked down in less than 20 years?

No doubt the £100 million paid in interest to service this debt over the last 10 years is why this town under Labour is so clapped out and getting worse.

After all this investment why has Blackburn the worst housing in the country and deteriorating fast? Councillor Doherty gets it wrong again, for was it not the Tories who brought out the standard grant to get rid of outside loos back in 1959? Was it not this Labour council, through its cockeyed interpretation of the regulations, which delayed thousands of homes from having the benefit of this convenience?

Furthermore, because of the constant punishment of the private sector, so that these Labour bigots could act out their political dogma, being like golden eagles over the public sector and squandering inordinate amounts of money on their unquenchable sponges, is why thousands in the private sector are forced to live in unfit homes and intolerable conditions and pay ever-spiralling increases in council tax for poor and fewer services as each year goes by.

Why does the Labour leader not admit that the socialists could not organise a night out in the town's last brewery.

WALT MEADOWS, Whalley New Road, Blackburn.

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