RE the letter from Thomas Fay regarding the Olive Lane area of Darwen.

I don't know how he can say that the children's recreational facility is excellent. I used to take my granddaughter over but seldom do now.

The baby swings were vandalised just after the playground opened and they have not been replaced.

If you go in the morning, before the council workman/men arrive, it is full of litter. They spend about an hour a day collecting all the bottles, beer cans, pop cans etc from the playground.

It is clear until the young people from Moorland School come down for their lunch and leave all their wrappings, bottles and cans.

Then, from when the schools finish until late at night, the children and young people (some not so young at night) descend and leave all their rubbish.

When my husband took our granddaughter over one day last week (she is nearly two), the slide was full of dog dirt (or worse).

I walked my granddaughter through the all-weather ball park last Friday, on the way to play group, and I counted 17 beer/lager cans plus a carrier bag full near the gate.

Mr Fay may not have any boarded-up houses on his patch (does he not count the Prince of Wales Public House?), but we have on Powell Street and Marsh Terrace.

If I sit on the sofa in our living room and look out of the front window, I see a house with a boarded-up window. If I look the other way, out of the back window, I can see a house with the window and door boarded up.

The street sweeper comes round with great regularity and does a good job, but people just chuck their rubbish in the street.

I again reported tipping in the back street between Powell Street and Marsh Terrace on Tuesday last week. This was removed within a couple of days by the council.

I moved into this house in April 1969 so feel qualified to say that the area is going downhill very quickly. Unlike Mr Fay who wouldn't live anywhere else' I would move tomorrow.

P HODKINSON, Powell Street, Darwen.