ERIC Leaver (LET, February 6) understood the complexity of the proposed closures of homes for the elderly by Lancashire County Council.

We in Lancashire Care Association have been putting up with the constant claptrap that has been symbolic of LCC since 1993. We warned them then that with the constant mismanagement of their services it would catch them up -- and it has.

They are hiding behind the Care Standards when the truth of the matter is that they are unable to contain their costs and cannot run within their budgets even though they pay their own homes around £100 per week more to accommodate a resident than they are prepared to pay the private sector.

Their announcement in November that by 2007 they would be placing virtually no physically frail elderly into residential care is, in effect, reducing choice for all.

Private homes will be used to bail out their homes closures but then will be closed down within the next five years by being starved of placements by their assessments denying the choice of residential care to them.

We agree that not everyone wants to go into residential care, but prior to 1993 when people had genuine choice, they chose the route they wanted to take and, hence, care homes ran full.

Of course, home care should be offered as an option but only as that and not a directive. Thank you for seeing through their cynicism and at least printing the truth.

FRANK HESSEY (Chairman, Lancashire Care Association), Centurion Way, Leyland.