HAVING spent pleasurable times in Arnside over many years, I find that the villagers there are refused a lottery grant for their Women's Institute, on the grounds that they do not have enough asylum seekers, ethnic minorities or old people with carers.

For goodness sake, it is a farming community, just recovering from near bankruptcy with foot and mouth disease, that takes a very small tourist income to supplement what must be desperate times.

FRANCIS CROSS, Eagle Street, Accrington.