DO we live in St Helens or Amsterdam? The so-called lap dancing club at Martine's should not be allowed into St Helens. People should not sit back and allow these things to develop.

To cater for this type of entertainment is not likely to make St Helens a better place to live in.

Our teenagers and young people, whether from a Christian background or not, shouldn't be brought up in a town where lap dancing is an acceptable form of entertainment.

Our councillors who allowed this development should be ashamed of themselves. We elect them to positions where they should protect us from these things - or they shouldn't be elected.

Surely the council haven't spent many thousands of pounds of our money to improve our shopping and transport around the town to attract the wrong type of people who will flock to these lap dancing clubs.

Another thing that's puzzling me is how did somebody come to the conclusion that we would even want a lap dancing club in the first place?

If we want to keep people in St Helens, surely we should create more bars (such as the two new ones opened in town recently), which this weekend were full of people enjoying themselves without the need for a lap dancer.

Don't forget we are competing with Warrington and Liverpool for trade, we cannot afford to drive people out of the area purely to cater for the minority.

John J. Osthoff, Hoylake Grove, Clock Face.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.