BY any measure, 55-year-old lung-disease victim Barry Pinder's life is tragic. He is terminally-ill, with perhaps only four years left.

And he spends every day confined in the living room of his council-owned home in East Lancashire, unable to move more than 10ft from the oxygen machine to which he is connected.

But if his plight is terrible, why cannot it be lightened so that he can live out his remaining days with dignity?

All Mr Pinder wants is to be able to stay in the house in Clitheroe where he has lived for 34 years and be free from the degradation of having to be washed, dressed and use a chemical toilet with the world able to look on.

And all it would take to free him from this indignity is a £15,000 extension with a shower and toilet.

It would cost more to provide a stair-lift to give him access to the bathroom and toilet upstairs.

But Ribble Valley Council refuses this request. Instead, they want Mr Pinder and his partner to move to a house fully adapted to his needs. He has turned this down -- saying he wants to die in the home where he has lived for so long and, being so ill, does not want the upheaval of moving house.

So why won't the council help him as he wants? They say they cannot afford to. For amazingly, they have only £20,000 set aside for adapting council houses for the disabled -- and the cost of an extension for Mr Pinder would consume almost all of it.

But if this case exposes what ludicrously low provision the council has made for sick and needy tenants, does it also not also reveal something else -- lack of compassion for a desperate, dying man who only seeks the dignity and respect that everyone deserves?

The council should rip up its mean budget and grant him his wish.