ACCORDING to the saying, the Lord helps those who help themselves.

But, so often in real life, officialdom clobbers them.

And that is what decent, house-proud residents on an East Lancashire council estate discover today.

For they are denied vital improvements to their homes because they have looked after them too well.

There is no money in the kitty, tenants at Lowerhouse in Burnley are told. Yet the council has poured millions into doing up homes on other estates that have been less well cared for.

Fair? Hardly.

But isn't this maddeningly typical of how the system works at times?

For, like the prudent who scrimp and save to make provision for their old age and find their savings and even their homes taken from them when they need residential care while the feckless get it all for nothing, the Lowerhouse tenants end up being victimised for their self-reliance.

They are ideal tenants. They pay their rents, cause no trouble, keep their homes, gardens and locality tidy - and, yet, suffer for it.

Each time, there has been a cash share-out for improving council homes, they have missed out because theirs have always been too good to meet the improvement criteria.

But now, as lack of investment catches up with the homes of the Palace House and Woodbine estates, their occupants are snubbed.

Housing chairman Councillor Rafique Malik pays tribute the tenants for keeping the Lowerhouse homes in good order and backs plans to explain the council's cash problems to them.

But what comfort is that?

The council should be knocking on the government's door making a special case for cash for these estates and pledging that the area has the top priority it deserves and, moreover, has earned.

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