RESIDENTS in a Darwen street today revealed they are still waiting to find out if a children's playground can be built on a piece of waste land close to their homes.

Mother-of-three Joanne Brine, 27, who lives in Springfield Street, said the idea was brought up more than a year ago but that she has heard nothing since.

The news comes after saplings planted on the land as part of the council's environmental enhancement scheme were vandalised and residents blamed lack of facilities for youngsters as one of the reasons.

Joanne said: "We all got a letter from our housing association to see if we agreed with the playground idea on the spare land but haven't heard anything since. Kids of various ages live on the street but there is nothing for them to do."

Joanne, whose children are aged five, nine and 10, said: " The nearest playground is at Bold Venture Park but I wouldn't let them go there on their own -- anyway I've heard there was some trouble up there." Her 10-year-old son Stephen said: "I get bored because there's nothing to do -- I can't play football because I hit too many cars."

Joanne added: "There's plenty of complaints from residents when children play out around here."

Area Manager for Northern Counties Housing Association Dean Butterworth said that although the spare land on the corner of Springfield Street and Wraith Street was owned by the council they had previously sent out a questionnaire during an annual consultation asking what tenants had thought of a proposal for a playground -- but had only received one reply back in favour of it. He said: "Because this is local authority land we would not be able to fund it and although we could support it there could be a problem because it would involve an unsupervised play area and going from past experience we would rather it be linked with supervised youth activities."

He added that residents were asked on an annual basis what they wanted to see improving where they lived but even if a play area was suggested it would have to go through the council's planning process.

The next consultation will be in August.