I FELT compelled to write and make my views known after reading last week that Bury Council are to rehouse our refugee visitors in council homes that are in "low demand".

I have a great deal of sympathy for these people after the tragic and terrifying events they have witnessed over the last few months, and I forward my best wishes to them in rebuilding their futures.

I am also proud to belong to a nation that has so wholeheartedly given money and resources to make their suffering easier; it can never be said that Britain does not do its best for those in trouble across the world.

Why then is it that our own people must suffer whilst such generosity is handed out to those we have no obligations to? Throughout the country there are many homeless on our streets who for years paid their tax and insurance before they lost everything. What help do they get?

There are many families crowded in council houses so run-down I wouldn't house a dog in them. What help do they get?

We have old people's homes and hospitals closing or with beds left empty from lack of funds. Where is the money to help them? I'm afraid while we still have people living in cardboard boxes during our bitterly cold winters, and families residing in houses with damp running down the walls, there are no council houses in "low demand" and no "spare money" to put towards the needs of foreign countries.

I felt able to justify the money and time spent preparing buildings for the refugees to stay in with the thought that the council may just turn these newly renovated hostels over to homeless organisations once the refugees had left.

To hear that those on council waiting lists have to wait longer for homes while refugees are given preference is not acceptable.

Now the war is coming to a close, and refugees are flooding back to their land, surely those suffering on our own doorsteps should be given our helping hands.

Helping others in need is a wonderful and unselfish act but please let us not forget those nearest to us when doing so.

Next time you rush to put money in a collecting box for the refugees or respond to the appeal for irons or kettles, please spare a moment to consider if you give so unselfishly to those in poor conditions living right under your noses.

Just because our poor or homeless are British it does not make them less deserving; they have a right not to be ignored and to be housed, clothed, and fed as well as any foreign sufferers.

Let us get England right before trying to solve the rest of the world's problems.

S. ROSS

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