LANCASHIRE'S crumbling schools are in such a shocking state that it could take up to 400 years to mend them all, says a new report today.

That is outrageous enough in itself.

But just as bad is the familiarity of this situation - and that next to nothing is being done about it by the government.

For year after year, they have been told.

They have been shown videos of the mess; all-party delegations from the county council have tramped repeatedly down to London to plead for cash and action; and our MPs have pressed the case.

Yet, despite all this, the economic madness of underfunding the repair programme has now reached the extent that, at current levels of spending, it would take as many as four whole centuries to put right.

The rot continues and the bill gets bigger all the time.

And the infuriating reality for teachers and children suffering in these slum conditions is that, as we stand on the brink of the 21st century, a third of our schools are still stuck in the 19th.

Facilities is many are so poor that they cannot even meet the standards that the government itself lays down for the national curriculum.

Does not that illustrate the hypocrisy of their talk about improving standards - when they are not prepared to pay for it?

And this new report comes only two months after the disclosure that the money for running the schools is fast running out - to the extent that more teaching jobs may have to go.

One sure fact about the coming election is the high priority that will be given to education as an issue.

Indeed, despite its disgraceful record in Lancashire, the government has set it on the agenda.

It will, we are sure, cost them dearly in votes in this neck of the woods.

And should they treat this latest report as they have done all the others, they will reap and electoral backlash with interest.

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