AFTER your articles on nuisance neighbours (LET, September 9 and 10) it's quite clear that MP Greg Pope has been reading Alastair Campbell's well-thumbed book of popular sound bites.

His attack on Hyndburn Council was totally over the top. What Hyndburn Council needs is an MP who is prepared to work with them, not against them. Maybe he is still sore that his Labour cronies were kicked out of office on May 6.

If things were as bad as he says, the thing to do would have been to meet the council, not your political writer Bill Jacobs, then maybe something constructive could be done.

Five letters by Mr Pope on the subject to Hyndburn Council since March this year, not May as your article said (LET, September 11), hardly constitutes a summer of discontent - that is, unless he knows more than he is telling the council. In which case if the council don't know about a problem, they can hardly take any action .

Mr Pope can rest assured that in housing business chairman Councillor Russell Davies, Hyndburn Council has someone who will not hesitate to implement any powers available to the council to deal with anti-social neighbours, but to do so the council needs to know who and where they are.

It's no good Mr Pope sitting on the problem then headline-grabbing to make it seem he cares.

Come on, Greg, work with the new efficient council, even though it's Tory. Take off your rose tinted glasses - you may be pleasantly surprised.

JOHN D FARRER, Mallard Place, Oswaldtwistle.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.