ALL too often, we are told improvements are being made to our estate, yet on March 18 one of our committee members rang the East Area Housing Office to complain about the state of one of the roads and was told that if we can find decent tenants, the council will move them in.

Otherwise, they said, the only tenants willing to move in are the ones we get now. If this is their attitude, we can't see any way of this estate being improved.

This is totally unfair to the tenants who have lived by the council rules and who are now leaving because of this.

Unfortunately, all tenants are being tarred with the same brush. As for the tenancy agreement, it doesn't seem to be worth the paper it is written on. Police officers once came regularly, either on the beat or in vehicles. Now, this has become a thing of the past and again there are problems arising on the estate.

When we have spoken to our local officers, we have been told they are now put on response duty, which means they could be at the other side of town.

And it is about time the councillors for Whitebirk opened their eyes to what is happening in their ward. There are a lot of disillusioned tenants on the estate who say that, come the local elections, they will put their vote elsewhere. Now is the time for this council and councillors to take note and take action.

IRENE HARRISON (chairman) and MICHELLE SMITH (secretary), Whitebirk Tenants' Association, Blackburn.

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