A grim and daunting picture is painted today of the extent of East Lancashire's chronic housing problem with the unveiling by Hyndburn Council of its strategy for dealing with the dire situation in its area.

For though it is the region's smallest borough, it has proportionately the biggest amount of problem housing, with almost a third of its 30,000 homes needing repairs to make them fit to live in and at least £200million needed to make that possible.

Yet, if Hyndburn's circumstance is the worst in East Lancashire, there is little comfort to be found in its other towns. For the region as a whole rates as one of the worst in the country too, with thousands more unfit houses needing repair and similarly vast sums required for the job.

But if the forbidding situation in Hyndburn puts into focus the degree of the problem across the whole of our area, what is particularly disturbing about it is the lack of confidence that our towns have in government efforts to truly get to grips with it and the social misery that it entails.

For bad housing is not simply a matter of its occupants living in less comfort than others. It breeds bad health, crime and social exclusion and seriously hinders the efforts of communities to progress and prosper.

And what is particularly pernicious about its extent in East Lancashire is that, as the Hyndburn experience shows, much of it is in the private sector where low incomes mean that owners cannot afford to improve their homes.

The glut of unwanted pre-1919 terraces makes repairing them uneconomic since, ultimately, the houses would still be worth less than they cost of making them fit to live in. As a result, the dilapidation continues and thousands of homes become empty.

Yet, if this situation cries out for wholesale demolition of the worst homes and the repair of those with a viable future, where are the resources that will make local authority housing strategies into action plans rather than wish lists? That £200million bill Hyndburn faces is met by just some £3million a year from government -- only enough for the ever-increasing problem to be solved 200 years from now.

It is high time that true commitment to getting to grips with our surplus of slums was shown at Westminster.