REGARDING your article (LET, August 31) on plans to build a bail hostel, I live in the area of Blackburn concerned. It is very wrong of the probation service to say the site is in a less sensitive area than others. Just two minutes' walk away there is a brand new housing estate.

Nearby there is also the housing estate, the Galligreaves, on which I live and also the Shakespeare mini-estate. There are 300 families on these estates.

We have trouble with the prostitutes hanging around and teenage girls are always being propositioned by kerb crawlers. We are sick of it all - and now we have the so-called bail hostel proposal. The council are spending masses of money on upgrading the area with new fences, footpaths and other environmental improvements.

Why this bail hostel should even be considered in such a position is incomprehensible.

We have our own problems with crime, break-ins, drug-related problems, vandalism, firebugs and an influx of youths who think the estates are a playground.

So these people who think the area is not "sensitive" should take a closer look.

We have worked hard to uplift our estate and make it a place where people want to live.

Would they even consider such a hostel up Revidge, Billinge or Pleckgate?

No, I don't think so.

MRS A WALLBANK, Roebuck Close, Blackburn.

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