A FEW weeks ago you published a picture of myself and a story complaining of the condition of the roads, particularly on Olive Lane, Darwen. This was, in fact, my last chance of getting anything done about them.

Previously I had taken 300 photographs of these roads and footpaths and sent them to Capita and made complaints to officers to try to get repairs done. At one point I was told that Olive Lane was 690th on the resurfacing list and that with the council's present spend on roads, if they started to re-cover all the roads in the borough it would take over 200 years for this to be achieved.

The bit that amazed me more than anything is the fact that on March 15 a story was published in the Telegraph headed "£2million extra to bridge the gap." This was a reference to the Freckleton Street Bridge project and that the price of steel had gone up and that the bridge would most £2million more.

Andy Kay stated that "if the government can't give us the money then we will pay the extra ourselves. Either way, the bridge will go ahead." Seems a bit strange to me that the council can simply pull £2million out of thin air, when there was no money for road repairs a few weeks earlier. Also, if this £2million was around the town hall, why was it not taken into consideration when this year's council tax was being set? If it had, we would have been looking at a considerably smaller increase than the 4.9 per cent which has been inflicted on us all.

COUNCILLOR ROY DAVIES, Blackburn with Darwen Council.