ACCORDING to your report on how Blackburn with Darwen won the Council of the Year award (LET, March 14), one of the judges, Brian Briscoe, chairman of the Local Government Association, praised the council for their strong community leadership and partnership approach and its ability to work in partnership with local communities.

But Mr Briscoe, on his fact-finding mission to Blackburn, was kept well away from Bank Top: he didn't get the chance to see the deprivation of the area caused by lack of funding, indifference and neglect, by the council.

Mr Briscoe was not given the opportunity to speak with the officers and committee of the Bank Top Community Association or the people of the area and hear of their anger and despair at the methods used by the council to close the association down, thereby depriving the community of its voice and its champion.

I wonder what Mr Briscoe would have made of all this. Would he really have been so impressed with the council?

Well, you can all return to your singing and dancing. But we are still here and still angry.

Maybe the local elections in May could be the time for us in Bank Top to focus our problems -- via the ballot box.

EDDIE DUXBURY (vice chairman, Bank Top Community Association), Arthur Way, Blackburn.