THERE is no doubt that the problem of trouble-torn and crime-plagued council estates are as big a nuisance for local authorities as they are for the majority of decent, house-proud residents who suffer from the neighbours-from-hell curse.

But, amid other signs of a get-tough stance by the town halls - now gunning for bad tenants with strict occupancy agreements, injunctions and fast-track eviction - the revelation of a new anti-trouble tactic on Blackburn's Roman Road estate may accelerate the drive against the unwelcome thugs.

That is the use of so-called "professional witnesses" to gather information on nuisance tenants and criminals plaguing the area and to testify against them.

At a stroke, the use of independent outsiders in this task robs the bad element of one of their prime weapons - intimidation.

In the past, cases against them have collapsed because their neighbours have been too afraid to complain or give evidence.

And although, in a society that values the right to privacy, there may be misgivings about the use of paid snoops and informers in the community, we are sure that those on the receiving end of the trouble and menace at estates like Roman Road will have few qualms.

For, as was told to a special seminar on the problems there, 99 per cent of the estate's residents are honest people who care about their community. Should not their right to a quiet life prevail, then, over any misplaced regard for the liberties of troublesome tenants and criminals - especially when they abuse them to make the lives of others a misery?

We think the council should get on with this drive without reservation.

And attention should also be paid to the call for "zero tolerance" policing - that which guns for all offences, even the most minor, rather than giving priority to the more serious ones.

For although the seminar heard that this would have serious resource implications for the police, it is possible for a confined area like a housing estate to be subjected to this policy.

The recent shake-up by Chief Constable Pauline Clare, designed to put more police in the front line, might provide the manpower for just such a concentrated drive.

With the dual approach of professional witnesses and zero tolerance policing, the hell neighbours and criminal thugs ruining life for the majority at Roman Road could be driven out - and possibly for good with the back-up of the new, tougher tenancy agreements.

Goodness knows, the tormented majority on these troubled estates deserve such a response.

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