It's not often that I read a comment by an East Lancashire councillor of any political persuasion and think: "What a good point to make, I wholeheartedly agree."

It was Colin Rigby, leader of Blackburn with Darwen Council, who won the accolade by highlighting the fact that a baby born in the Mill Hill area of Blackburn will live an average of ten years less than a child born in Tockholes.

He added: "That is disgraceful in this day and age."

Yes, what's horrifying about this simple statistic is the yawning chasm it reveals between individual lifestyles in a very small area.

For those who don't know, Mill Hill and Tockholes are just three miles apart.

And before anyone ignorant of these two places starts talking about race, let's be clear. It has no relevance to this figure whatsoever.

We are all already aware that people in large chunks of Burnley, Pendle and Hyndburn as well as Blackburn are, on average, worse off in terms of health, educational achievement and financial wealth than much of the rest of the country, particularly the south.

But how come people living a short walk away from Tockholes are on this earth for a decade less?

One reason could be that they never actually make that three-mile walk from Mill Hill up to Tockholes and the wide-open moorland that surrounds it.

Or even just saunter along the towpath of the Leeds and Liverpool canal which meanders right through the centre of Mill Hill linking it with central Blackburn via the Asda supermarket or Eanam Wharf.

Fair enough, walking, jogging, or even cycling in the open spaces we have all around us, is not everyone's cup of tea.

And as we near the end of what feels like the third month of almost continuous rain it is becoming less difficult to understand why not everyone enjoys walking or running.

But Coun Rigby was talking at the opening of the new £1.35m sports arena at Darwen Vale High School.

The building available for use by the wider community rather than just pupils (and within easy reach of both Mill Hill and Tockholes) includes a hall suitable for a wide range of individual and team sports as well as exercise facilities, So we really have no excuse for spending night after night either sitting like couch potatoes in front of the TV or walking to the pub and torturing our livers with an unceasing flow of alcohol.

While it's true that poverty does play a part in all this the crucial thing is attitudes - starting with politicians.

Successive British governments have overseen the selling off of playing fields for housing and baulked at spending money on sports and leisureor anything else they believe won't provide electoral payback in three or four years.

That's why countries with populations smaller than Birmingham regularly beat us at all kinds of sports and our football teams are full of foreign players.

And until we all demand better sports and leisure facilities and training many of us are going to continue to die long before we should.