£95 millions sounds a lot of money. It's certainly more fivers than we can imagine, and more than most of us would know what to do with if we suddenly found ourselves with a lucky ticket.

If we are to believe what we read in the papers it's even enough to buy peerages for 41 of our friends, though under a 1926 law you would risk prison if you are caught.

Anyway, it's the amount that the Government is handing to the Elevate, East Lancashire "pathfinder", over the next two years to dole out among the local councils for the purposes of Housing Market Renewal "HMR" in the jargon.

It's not quite as it's been spun. It's about ten per cent down on what was originally expected, apparently due to "over-programming" last year by civil servants who did not believe councils were competent to spend their allocation!

The money was meant to be announced last November. But these same civil servants are four months behind! As for the "40% increase", that's a comparison with the first two years when it took time to get things going.

No-one doubts the real need for this scale of investment in housing in East Lancs, but there are growing concerns about how it's being spent. John Prescott's aim of knocking down a quarter of a million houses in the North of England seems dafter by the week.

Prices of terraced houses round here have been rising sharply whether due to the effect of the Pathfinder programme itself, growing confidence in our towns, or speculators hoping for a quick killing.

The days of buying up a whole street and having change from £100,000 are over, even in Burnley. In Pendle, buying a reasonably maintained terraced house to knock down now costs the council at least £60,000, including the value of the house and compensation payments for owner-occupiers.

Is that good value for public money? Should we put more of the HMR money into refurbishing houses and local streets?

On Friday evening I met residents from streets in Brierfield that are due for demolition. I have little doubt what they would want if we could put the clock back two or three years.

I have a question down in the House of Lords to ask the Government whether they think they have got the balance right. I for one doubt whether they have.