WITH a plethora of public art, ranging from a huge metal treble-clef to neither-open, nor-shut gates across the streets, already adorning the town centre and tin trees and a bare-bottomed colossus decorating other parts of the borough, Blackburn with Darwen might be considered rich enough as it is in sculpture culture.

But the disclosure that the council is to fund -- to the tune of £100,000 -- a 35ft by 26ft depiction of the 'River of Life' in the grounds of Blackburn Cathedral as part of its town centre action plan will delight all those citizens who believe you cannot get enough of this sort of thing. Which, to my mind, amounts to a handful of squanderbug councillors who have more money than sense.

Only a few months ago the council was shutting old folk's homes because of the need for economy. Now, it splashes out on 'art' as if money was no object.

No-one would object if that was the case. But if the council took a straw poll of its tax-paying townsfolk, it would find out smartish that its priorities are way out of line with those of ordinary people - who, I'd bet, would much prefer the area around the Cathedral to be regularly swept free of litter before it and the town generally are graced by yet another extravagant 'work of art.'