I HAVE no idea if Jozef Stalin was a big fan of public art, no doubt he'd be drooling over the council's latest offering to the long-suffering people of Darwen.

Firstly, let me say that I have long been a proponent of good public art and believe that it can help define the spirit of a place. Even the much-maligned renovation of Blackburn's Church Street I think has an integrity which has transformed what had become a run-down eyesore in the heart of Blackburn town centre. Someone even had the good grace to roll one of those brass earth-ball thingamajigs five miles to Darwen Three-Day Market. And very nice it looks, too.

At some point in the 80s, we began to copy some of the successful tourist initiatives on the other side of the Pennines, most particularly in Bradford. Part of this process involved the recycling of "industrial archaeology" as a form of sculpture.

This can be successful: there are interesting, if hardly arresting, examples in Darwen, two of which reside just down the road from the latest effort -- one of those currently in a state of some distress -- and this is my point. If good art can define a place, so can bad taste. Think of the mother and child sculpture on Blackburn bus station. It looks like it has been salvaged from a 60s Arndale, but is the first thing many visitors to the town will see.

In all its awfulness however it is far surpassed by our new addition, a great rusting drum which might well be put to better use on the square of Darwen Cricket Club or flattening the tennis courts at Corporation Park.

JOSEPH H WRIGHT, Nancy Street, Darwen.