REGARDING your report 'Council is best in the country,' I found it just unbelievable.

If Blackburn with Darwen Council is the best, heaven help the rest. But then again, I thought, no doubt the judges are out of the same mould as those for the Turner art prizes, so there is a reasonable explanation for the decisions.

If this council's standard of street cleaning is acceptable then there must be some real pig styes around.

If other councils have roads worse than Blackburn, they must be using dirt tracks. And if other towns have the mass of unfit houses that Blackburn has, then they must be living in shanty towns.

But somebody somewhere has knocked heads together and not made the town a city. So there must be some hope out there.

WALT MEADOWS, Whalley New Road, Blackburn.