PHIL Riley (Letters, January 30) lists some of the services that Blackburn and Darwen Council is supposed to provide and questions the awareness of these.

However, rather than being unaware of what the council does, I suspect that it is the grim state of some of these services that drives people to complain.

I image Mrs A Reid (Letters, January 26) is upset that, with the exception of a couple of inner London boroughs, the borough's infant classes have the largest average sizes of any primary schools in the country.

Certainly, she would be right to be put out that only 50 per cent of repairs to dangerous damage to roads and pavements are carried out within 24 hours (fourth worst in the country and half what most authorities manage).

I could understand her annoyance with the fact that our libraries have fewer than one book per person in the borough (nearly 70 per cent less than what the best unitary authorities achieve).

And we are all driven mad by the dirty state of our streets -- barely a third of the council's roads reached an acceptable standard compared with those of other authorities around the region.

So I think it's Mr Riley who doesn't realise. Far from being ignorant, Mrs Reid and many people like her know exactly how poor the service they are getting really is.

JOHN COTTON (Local Conservative spokesman) Dukes Brow, Blackburn.