THERE are lots of buzz words in local government. Jargon leads the way while action trails in behind.

Best practice and core values, empowerment and governance, stakeholder and functionality; words which usually have two main objectives: a) Keep the punters guessing, and b) Maintain the illusion that they are brighter than us.

My favourite bit of jargon is "consultation". The object here is to give the impression that what we think matters to them and that it might actually make a difference.

Elderly hacks are a cynical mob. We've seen it all before and aren't easily impressed. We are especially unimpressed with "con-sul-tay-shun".

It rears its head in Darwen tomorrow when BwD Council's Neighbourhood Voices programme comes to town.

It's been hawked around several areas of Blackburn and now it's our turn "to explore openly the specific challenges and opportunities ... and to agree priority areas for action..."

No one has Darwen's interests more at heart than me.

But I won't be there. Another cynic summed it up at one of the Blackburn meetings.

He said he'd been coming to this sort of chat show for 10 years without seeing any action.

I had thought about it, but then I looked closely at the form to register an interest and came across the line: "When all the forms have been returned we will contact those selected."

So, no room for a local reporter who might be less than supportive of another expensive "consultation" exercise? Awkward questions? Not today...

What do we want for Darwen? What every community wants, of course.

A town centre with retail outlets to fill all the empty shops; more facilities for youngsters to keep them off the streets (and more police on them); inexpensive housing; good schools; a council that doesn't throw our money away; and litter-free streets where we can walk around at night without looking over our shoulders for rampaging hoodies and staggering drunks.

In the hands of weekend amateurs and kids, alcohol causes problems.

I thought the proposed borough-wide ban on street drinking was an excellent idea.

David Mallaby, the divisional police commander, thought so although he had some mild reservations about the possible speed of implementation.

I was surprised the recent council meeting didn't force through the issue.

The Coalition was for it and they have a narrow majority.

But it didn't help when the two For Darwen Party members who turned up left before the vote.

Their third member wasn't too well, apparently.

The Labour group wanted a closer look at the proposal and won narrowly. Opportunity lost.

On Wednesday at 7pm there's another "consultation", a youth PACT meeting between community police and youngsters in the church hall in Spring Vale.

The previous one in the area went well last October and no doubt the youngsters - much less cynical that me - will be expecting to hear that some of their ideas will soon be up and running.