The news of the Blackburn Youth Zone in the centre of town is fantastic and can only be something exciting to look forward to.

I do hope as part of the regeneration of the ‘Cathedral Quarter’ that something of what the Cathedral stands for, will have some impact on the vision for something that has the potential to be life- changing.

We live in a rather broken society and as the Chief Rabbi, Lord Sacks, wrote in The Times of September 14: many of the social problems of our society “cannot be solved by government spending. . .In the broadest sense, they have to do with culture and the lack of a shared moral code.”

It would be a pity, if the wonderful vision for regeneration that will become the Youth Zone did not have a serious input from the young people of faiths in Blackburn, who believe that a decline in culture and spirituality are not inevitable and that sometimes depressing statistics about young people can be redressed, so that a deeper meaning to living can be celebrated in Blackburn’s exciting vision for youth.

(Rev Fr) John M Hanvey Freckleton Street, Blackburn.