THE committee of the Roe Lee Area Residents' Association in Blackburn would like to know why council officials show so much apathy in dealing with tenancies and complaints passed on to them by their members who, after all, work in a voluntary capacity.

The Pearl Street estate is slowly becoming a downtrodden area. There are a lot of decent, houseproud tenants who have lived there since the estate was built and who are having their lives made a misery by the type of tenants allocated flats and maisonettes totally unsuitable for their needs.

Is there no vetting of prospective tenants these days?

My family was vetted 40 years ago and it worked.

What has happened to the 12-month probationary period which the council introduced?

On this estate there are six people - four of them children - living in a two bedroom maisonette.

Young people being given one bedroom flats which were built for the elderly who are now too afraid to go out because of the vulgarity and abuse given to them by the rough element now living on the estate.

We have winos and alleged drug takers. One house has men and women going in and out during the day. What does that suggest? We are trying to build up a community for the benefit of the people and we have to hire the Scout hut for meetings for the Parents and Toddlers group, the Over 55 Club, jumble sales and table top sales - the latter two to buy equipment needed for these groups as they get no help from the council except a small grant to pay for phone calls made on behalf of tenants and towards postage.

There are other residents associations in the town which have had extra grants; some even have a council community officer. What do we get - nothing. We have the support of only one councillor out of six.

We suppose that if we lived on the other side of Skew Bridge, we would have all the help the council can provide.

But this side of the bridge just doesn't exist as far as the council is concerned and it is high time this situation was changed before the estate becomes a ghetto.

CHAIRMAN, VICE CHAIRMAN AND COMMITTEE, Roe Lee Residents Association, St Gabriel's Scout Hut, Emerald Street, Blackburn.

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