SO, according to your report on 'boom town Clitheroe' (LET, August 5), Keith Fairclough believes that the team at the town's job centre do a 'very good job.'

Well, I was summoned to a New Deal interview last August and, on the premise of getting the subsidised job option, was conned into doing three months of working for benefits at the local council offices (sounds remarkably like Workfare).

After that, I got a choice of two courses for an 'option' - funny how they both involved going to Training 2000 - and the subsidised job option was 'withdrawn.'

The end of the course which I am on might be a month away now.

The above job centre has had two bites of the cherry on New Deal, and taken advantage of the fact that I have got Crohn's Disease.

Where's my side of the New Deal?

ANDREW JACKSON, Brownlow Street, Clitheroe.

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