IT IS perhaps cynical to observe that, with an election on, the problems of a crime-plagued housing estate, dubbed "Darwen's Bronx," suddenly seem to be getting extra attention from councillors - with them joining residents to demand a police crackdown.

But if the town's troubled St James's Estate is typical of anything, it may not be the notorious New York borough with which it is being linked.

Rather, it is a prime example of a community - and there are many like it in Britain - that needs to realise that responsible co-operation with the police is the answer to its problems.

This, of course, is a two-way partnership.

The police must also co-operate with the community.

And the charge today is that they are slow to react to incidents on this estate.

Some kick-starting, then, seems to be needed to get a working partnership running properly.

And the neighbourhood centre meeting next Monday between police, councillors and residents to thrash out the estate's problems would seem to be the ideal opportunity for that.

For what often assists crime and nuisance to thrive on estates like St James's is the sort of deadlock that occurs when the community loses faith in the police and vice-versa.

When the police are slow to respond, or are perceived to be, responsible residents who report crime and potential trouble feel let down.

The discouraged response is: Why bother?

Worse, concerned citizens lose the mettle to inform if, through the belief that the police lack interest in their complaints, they feel open to retaliation by criminal or anti-social neighbours.

In turn, as crime as a result breeds in the community - and it acquires a reputation that is exaggerated by appellations like "Bronx" - it becomes less trusted by the police because it is a place of criminality and with apparently low levels of co-operation with the police.

All this adds to the desperation of the decent citizens who, if they can, move out leaving the neighbourhood's reputation to carry on going down as crime and nuisance levels go up.

It is a Catch 22.

But the police can act to break the mould by providing all such estates with a lasting, visible, high-profile community presence to make residents and villains realise their community is properly policed.

So that, for instance, a councillor cannot claim - as one on the stump does today in Darwen - that he is still waiting after three weeks for an answer to a message he left with a beat bobby.

And so that, for example, residents cannot claim that it takes hours for the police to respond to incidents.

Meantime, those councillors currently jumping on this bandwagon at election time, might play a more useful part if they demanded a town hall policy that imposed sanctions - including the ultimate one of eviction - on trouble-making tenants on council estates.

Yes, let there be the crackdown that people are calling for - a three-pronged one by the police, council and community.

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