I READ with great interest your article (LET, August 26) regarding the decline of the Roman Road estate in Blackburn. Very shortly there will be a similar one about the Higher Croft estate.

The mistake the council makes is stepping in when it is too late, instead of nipping the problem in the bud. I made the mistake of buying my house 10 years ago because the cul-de-sac where I live was quite respectable.

Why aren't officers employed to pay random visits in different areas and see the problems as they start? For instance, a number of houses near mine have been vacated and within a few hours the garden fencing was stripped down to nothing. Vandals just wreck anything they get their hands on.

I drove round the road today and the grates were all up. The road most of the time is a dumping ground with bricks and wood strewn over it. Most of the culprits are aged between two and 14, sometimes staying out until 11pm.

When I returned at 10.45pm, about five or six kids were coming out of my back garden via the fence, which they are hacking lumps out of. They get access over the back which has become a dumping ground of whatever you wish to name.

If I prosecute, are the police really interested? What do we pay council tax for? What do the council do - pay money to keep boarding up the houses and reallocating them to the same people?

But miss one payment of council tax and a summons is out for you to attend court. Now that's what you call 'immediate action.'

That is why Blackburn is not the Blackburn we knew in the Sixties.

ELAINE ALMOND, Fleetwood Close, Blackburn.

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