CHRIS Thayne (Letters, January 22) suggests that there has been some failure by Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council and local councillors in overseeing the work by North West Water on the A666 through Darwen.

Nothing can be further from the truth. The Council has tried to use its very limited legal powers to minimise this disruption.

Unfortunately, many of the council's powers in this area were removed by the last Tory government in 1991. The Council is forced by law to fight with both hands tied behind its back. Recognising this, local Labour councillors have had several meetings with North West Water to try to persuade them to speed up their works.

Each time, we were given a new completion date only a couple of weeks away. Each time the new completion date came and went, but the roadworks remained.

That is why we finally took the action we did on January 13, handing out orange protest cards to motorists and residents suffering from these roadworks.

This protest received extensive media coverage, not only in the local press, but also on both BBC and Granada regional news programmes.

Local Labour councillors are well aware of the powers they do and do not have and we try to be creative when our powers are limited.

Your readers can judge for themselves whether it is better to have elected representatives who know what they are able to do, or others, like Mr Thayne and his fellow Liberals, who have no idea.

COUNCILLOR DAVE HOLLINGS, Sudell Road, Darwen.

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