REGARDING grants for new buildings and upgrading the schools in East Lancashire (LET, April 12).

As reported, this £5 million is in accordance with the Government's 'new deal for schools' plan.

But the people living in Pendle are really disappointed that the schools in need have been totally ignored, particularly those with the highest percentage of children of Pakistani and Kashmiri origin.

Although the schools' intake is from the four or five most deprived wards in Pendle, why they have failed to have a fair share of this hand-out is not understandable.

We have read the list of schools getting grants again and again, but we could not see Primet High, Walton High or Edge End High School or Bradley Primary, Lomeshaye Primary, Marsden Primary and Bradley Nursery among them. This, surely, constitutes institutional negligence that will reflect on the community.

These are in areas of Pendle that have the highest unemployment and the highest number of youths involved in drug-related crimes, anti-social attitudes being far behind in education achievement.

We in Nelson feel strongly that we have been ignored and our education needs have been deliberately neglected.

We therefore would like to record our protest and strongly demand a full inquiry into why these schools had been left out.

M ABDULLAH ZAID (Kashmir Welfare Association, Pendle), St Paul's Road, Nelson.