I READ with some trepidation your sympathy over yet more manufacturing jobs going from our area (LET, September 30). Please don't give us the impression that you care, because newspapers don't have feelings. I don't think I am alone in my criticism. The council are even worse.

May I be blunt and ask, if you support jobs being carried out by local people and their income being kept in the locality to support other jobs that depend on this money? Why do the council not impose a use-local-labour policy when things such as Blackburn's Lord Square is refurbished?

They bark on about traffic and its reduction, but what about the dozens of vans and people flooding into town from elsewhere to do this work at rates people round here wouldn't get a sniff at? If you look at the local construction projects involving the council and see how many local vans from Blackburn, Darwen, Accrington are parked outside, you will find more from Liverpool and Manchester or wherever else.

We don't see manufacturing competing because of the unfair burden of tax companies have to pay. I know that national non-domestic rates must be paid and the council must collect them, but the council sets them.

Remember Cupal? Off they went to somewhere where the rates payable were more competitive. Even councils have to compete.

If people were given the choice between cheaper rates for business, safer jobs but no new Church Street, which do you think they would vote for?

When your newspaper expresses sympathy for us unfortunate people who lose our jobs on average every 18 months because of the shrinkage in manufacturing, at least try to understand that you can make a difference by asking your readers if they would back a motion that leads the council to enforce a use-local-labour policy when allocating such works.

MIKE MOORE, Greenway Street, Darwen.