AS I sit here watching my children playing and growing up I think back to my childhood growing up in Blackpool. In those days my family, like many, worked in the tourism industry and we were very privileged to do so.

They also knew, as I did, that out future lay there and we invested our future into the tourism industry. The only blackspot over the past 40 years was the recession around 1981 which had such a devastating effect on many local businesses that some never recovered.

Unlike some people, I think that even though the advent of foreign holidays has had an effect, we still had an estimated 16 million visitors per year up until this year. Why then, out of the blue, has this unofficial estimated figure been halved to 8 million visitors per year? Is this just another piece of the jigsaw that we see as the systematic running down of Blackpool as the number one holiday resort in Europe? Look at the real facts. If you don't invest, your business will decline. If you do not clean up your act or deal with the negative problems and issues that affect it, your business will eventually collapse around you. Does this sound familiar? Well just relate the above rules to the tourism industry in Blackpool. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that this is exactly what has happened here!

The point is -- do you, the people of Blackpool, realise that this running down of the town is being done from within? I do not say this lightly and I know that I may be dismissed as "ridiculous" but I will now point out some basic facts that has all led to the decline in the tourism industry.

At the end, just ask yourself how many of these factors could be sorted out by our own council/officers/police etc. or how many of them are actually caused by so-called "outside influences" that we are told are out of our control?

1. A virtually non-existent police force on foot patrol during the season, most importantly along the east/west promenade. (This does not include Talbot Square or outside certain nightclubs on Fri/Sat evenings.) 2. Beggars everywhere, day and night, harassing and intimidating holidaymakers.

3. Dirty filthy pavements that are no longer washed but are swept maybe once a day. Have a look on any busy Saturday.

4. Illegal street trading, doorway trading, mobile shops, game stalls and various rogues touting for business. Sadly, the holidaymakers have no comeback on these people.

5. Blow-up dolls and plastic bums on open display outside promenade shops. If these were displayed more discreetly, people would not be offended.

6. Most attractions being so ridiculously expensive that for most families it costs a fortune to do anything here.

7. The standard of many small guest houses being so poor as to be unbelievable if it were not true.

8. Gangs of out-of-control men/women all over the town every weekend going unchecked and unpoliced as if sticking two fingers up at the town because they can do what they want, when they want and how they want. Don't mention CCTV to them -- they just laugh in your face.

9. Allow normal holidaymakers and children to mingle with these drunks all day and night with no police in sight to ask for any help or reassurance if required.

10. The so called "Booze Ban". What a joke! Look at the promenade every Saturday and you will see hundreds of people breaking the by-law. But how do you enforce a rule without anyone to enforce it? 11. National advertising being virtually non-existent.

12. Some of the most expensive car parking fees outside of any major city. Not exactly a way to boost tourism.

Anyway, we'll all be fine and dandy soon when the casinos arrive won't we! Leisure parks and the council appear to be our saviours from the decline we are experiencing but why does it have to be resort casino hotels?

As other people have said, aren't there enough casinos here already? Can't we redevelop the town in other ways? Has anyone told us how many they want to build, how far along the promenade they want to go or who will have to make way for these hotels?

Just imagine how small shops, cafes, arcades, guest houses etc. will stand alongside these complexes catering for 2000+ people. Will they survive? I don't think so.

I tell you now that if these casinos take over, then this will be the end of Blackpool as we know it. Forget the over 50s, pensioners, stag and hen parties, families and children -- there will be nothing here for them. It will be full of the kind of people who have spent their lives in one casino or another -- chasing their last loss!

Name and address supplied.