A DISTRAUGHT mum whose house is surrounded by boarded up and condemned properties today surveyed the wreckage of a home ransacked by burglars and pleaded: "Get me out of this ghetto."

Beverley Britland, 31, is among a handful of tenants who live in the Cockermouth Close area of Blackburn's troubled Roman Road estate.

She claims she had been pushing to be rehoused for more than two years, but had been continually refused by Blackburn with Darwen Council.

Today Beverley, who lives with children, Thomas, 10, three-year-old Catherine and partner Peter O' Connor, said she had had enough.

She said: "I am absolutely petrified. I feel sick with fear.

"My children are heartbroken. They stole Catherine's money box which contained £40 and Thomas's Sony Play Station. "I have been asking for a move for more than two years and the council's response has been pathetic.They should have done something before it came to this.

"I am one of only a few tenants left. All the houses at the back of me in Maryport Close have been boarded up and are due to be demolished.

"My children can't play out. It is like living in a ghetto. Somebody compared this area to Kosovo recently, but it is probably worse than that."

Beverley had just returned from a business administration course at Roman Road Community Centre at 3pm on Thursday when she discovered the break-in.

The raiders also stole a video recorder, Play Station games and compact discs.

A spokeswoman for Blackburn with Darwen Council said officials were already talking to tenants from the Cockermouth Close area about rehousing and were hopeful they would be able to help Mrs Britland in the near future.

"Unfortunately, the level of finance needed and the risks involved in working with a private developer to regenerate the whole area were such that the council did not feel it was appropriate to proceed.

"Coun Mohammed Khan, the chairman of the Housing and Community Services Committee, has now written personally to every tenant on the Roman Road estate explaining that they, along with other tenants in the borough, will be given a chance to decide whether they want their homes to be transferred to a Local Housing Company which the council could set up specially to take over council houses in the borough."

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