LET me list just a few items you reported recently (LET, March 5 and 6): Casualty staff crisis in East Lancashire, Therapist shortage for the elderly, East Lancashire top of the tables for cramped classrooms, High school buildings crumbling.

Sorry to say, there is just no cash to improve any of these deficiencies. However, if you fancy a nice bronze statue, that is no problem at all - £25,000 is yours for the asking (LET, February 18). But perhaps your fancy is for a few metal trees, even easier, £64,000 is yours (LET, March 6).

A road system that chokes Blackburn town centre to death? Certainly, you can have that whether you want it or not and no one has ever mentioned the cost. But many of us know the cost in terms of bad temper and sheer frustration. Does that aspect of it matter? No, not really. Montague Street, in Blackburn (above, right), is the latest obstacle course to be created. But if you fancy cycling, then there is no problem. You now have your very own cycle lane.

Very gratifying, I am sure, for the hundreds of people who just have to cycle up and down Montague Street every day of the week. (It would be interesting to know just how many people regularly cycle UP it).

How our politicians, both local and national, can expect right-thinking people to turn out to vote in the face of just a few of the idiotic measures being forced upon us, I do not know.

I have heard that much of the cost is being met with European money which cannot be spent any other way. Would it not be better to refuse the cash rather than insult our intelligence with the way the money is being used?

JAMES SHORROCK, Cheltenham Road, Blackburn.

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