CONSTRAINTS on town hall spending may force councils to prioritise services, but must the system be so harsh that people have to suffer like wheelchair-bound Eveline Price - a prisoner in her own home because the council cannot find a paltry £5,000?

Sixty-year-old diabetes victim Mrs Price had both legs amputated two years ago.

Her bungalow in Accrington needs a ramp so she can get in and out in her wheelchair.

Hyndburn Council agrees she is entitled to a grant for the work.

But waiting 10 months already, Mrs Price has now been told she will have to wait until next year.

The job will cost some £5,000. But the council says it cannot spare that much.

The upshot is that work is carried out according to priorities - of how bad the condition is of each person on the waiting list for house adaptations like those Mrs Price needs. But just how bad does someone have to be to get such vital work done in less than the appalling two-year time-scale this poor women is looking at?

Even accepting that the town hall does not have bottomless coffers, we share the anger and frustration of Hyndburn MP Greg Pope over the council's pleading powerlessness and poverty.

And as much as money may be the problem, could it also be poor management that keeps Mrs Price trapped in her home all this time?

For when she lived in Yorkshire, her local council fitted a ramp at her home before she came out of hospital.

That is a much different performance - and, evidently, the result of a much different outlook at that town hall.

But if money is at the root of Mrs Price's cruel fate, is it really beyond the wit of the council to find £5,000 out of its huge budget?

And, surely, if Hyndburn Council could ease up for a moment on its obsession for speed ramps on the roads, it could find the cash for a ramp that is really needed - at Mrs Price's home.

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