YET again vast sums of public funds are to be pumped into Callon Estate (Citizen, July 7).

This, on top of vast amounts of public monies already spent on upgrading and improving the houses on the estate.

I write as a council tenant in another deprived are of Preston who, unlike tenants of Callon, Moor Nook, Ribbleton, Grange and Greenlands, can't even get simple repairs and maintenance carried out to a satisfactory degree, or within reasonable time.

Unlike Callon, we don't have gangs of youths making the lives of young couples a misery.

Nor do we have organised drug dealers and traffickers in our midst.

We don't have people being killed by gunshots in their own home or on the streets either. But if we had half a million pounds to spend on our homes, I guarantee it would not be frittered away on hare-brained schemes such as floorscapes, railings and fancy street furniture either.

Frankly, like the vast majority of people in Preston, I'm sick to the back teeth of seeing ever-increasing amounts of public money being wasted on filling an apparently 'bottomless pit' known as the Callon estate.

Whatever next? Are we to read of tenants on the Callon estate being given public funding to install gold-plated bathroom fittings?

There are other estates in and around Preston for the council to concern themselves and public funding with.

Larches, Lea and Deepdale are just three which need desperately need funding and improving.

What we don't need is some crackpot committee or forum, filled with self-appointed nobodies, wasting both time and money.

E Sanderson

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