I AM disappointed that you give so much space in Your Letters to the BNP and, in particular, ones under the name of Robin Evans.

The one (Letters, May 16) about the areas that are eligible for Single Regeneration Budget funding is full of error, implication and underlying racism.

It is totally untrue to say that any of the local councils decide on the boundaries used for SRB funding. The decisions are taken by civil servants and are based on several different indicators of deprivation which are used throughout the country.

Coun Evans does not say money is going to ethnic minority areas directly but it implies it, as does all the BNP literature that I have seen.

He says he is not racist but what he implies is racist.

I represent Corporation Park Ward in Blackburn and it has areas suffering from deprivation alongside areas that are much better off. Unfortunately, because of this, the residents, who include many of Asian heritage, cannot have SRB money spent on their community. The failing of the deprivation indices used over the last 20 years is simply that they are based on geographical areas that are too big.

Pockets of deprivation within a ward are not identified on a national scale and struggle to obtain funding alongside all other areas of the borough.

What the BNP fails to acknowledge is that areas receiving SRB funding (and other funds that the council has had to bid for) are those areas with the worst deprivation across the whole ward area. They are not honest when they imply that only Asian heritage residents are in those areas.

The BNP is trying to gain favour with white voters by saying all the money has gone to these 'other areas.' This is nonsense and untrue.

Your newspaper should stop giving the BNP a platform for its divisive propaganda and should be trying to build bridges between all sections of the community, just as it said in an editorial immediately after Robin Evans was elected.

COUN DAVE HARLING (Labour, Corporation Park Ward, Blackburn with Darwen Council), Selborne Street, Blackburn.