WHAT is wrong with some people in Darwen? First of all, they moan that there is no money coming into the town. Then they hear about proposals for a brand new health centre and do their level best to make sure it doesn't happen.

As a user of services at Darwen Health Centre, I speak for a number of people who would benefit from the extra facilities to be placed in the new centre.

We do not have enough doctors in the town, but there is no room at the health centre for any more. Getting an appointment is a bit of a joke at the moment, with a wait of around a week to see our GPs.

If a new centre means more GPs and more facilities that are only currently available at Queen's Park Hospital in Blackburn then how can that be bad? I for one do not believe anywhere can be worse for the centre than its current cramped site -- opposite the exit of the fire station and next to the police station.

How can emergency vehicles get anywhere fast when their exit is constantly hampered by the large number of parked vehicles and people crossing the street to use the centre?

Darwen is probably one of the hilliest towns in the North West and anywhere you go you are up a hill. Disabled people will have no more difficulty accessing the centre than they currently do reaching their own homes up the many steeper and longer hills in the town, especially if bus services are to be redirected to the new centre.

I believe GPs and nurses still visit patients at home where necessary -- is anyone suggesting that this centre would change that?

But, then again, it is hardly surprising that we hear these moans. After all, those who are voicing their opposition to this centre are people who believe public money would be much better spent digging up the natural moors and disturbing wildlife to install electricity to light up Darwen Tower.

So can I issue a plea as a Darwener for this vociferous minority to stop knocking something before it even gets off the ground? Instead, let's start feeling some benefit for us all and see the first class health centre we deserve built in our very own Darwen.

C CONLON, Whitehall, Darwen.