REGARDING your report, headlined 'Building A Dream' (LET, February 5) about the Government project to deal with the thousands of unfit houses in East Lancashire, how many times has this old record been played and reissued under different names?

We have had General Improvement Areas, schemes like Brookhouse 1 and Brookhouse 2 in Blackburn, renewal areas, the City Challenge Concept, Single Regeneration Bids and, now, the daddy of them all, Pathfinder projects.

This is typical Labour smoke and mirrors, bundling meaningless figures together and presenting them as a lump sum to hoodwink the public into thinking something is going to happen.

Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott announced amidst a fanfare of applause that the magnificent sum of £500 million is to be made available to the Pathfinder schemes.

But, when looked at closely, this works out as nine Pathfinder schemes running three years sharing the £500million between them -- which equates to £18.5million per annum for each.

Thus, if Blackburn has 40 per cent of the unfit houses, will it get 40 per cent of the money on offer? -- which is a princely sum of £7.4million.

And is this extra money over and above the present allowance the town gets or is incorporated?

What the politicians and housing grandees fail to grasp is that if they provided the facilities and some people a decent environment and surroundings free from garbage, decent roads, safe footpaths, protection from muggers, druggies, thieves and what have you, many of the housing problems would take care of themselves, even without government hand-outs.

Most of the problems are caused by people themselves -- just look at the vandalised estates that have been built at huge cost to the taxpayers and failed through lack of co-ordinated management by local councils.

After spending tens of millions, these same houses still remain unfit to live in and now await a further grant to make the insides liveable.

WALT MEADOWS, Whalley New Road, Blackburn.