REGARDING your report headlined "Widow's home targeted in brick attack," (LET, April 16), as a long time resident of the Ashworth Street estate in Blackburn, of which Shaw Close is a part, I take issue with some of the statements in the article, particularly those from Gwyneth Sarkar, the director of housing of Twin Valley Homes, which, I reckon, have lost the plot completely.

First, we had the famous letters threatening to evict tenants who did not keep their gardens tidy. This move was successful only in that it put the frighteners on the elderly and the disabled. Nobody else took any notice.

Then, we have the write-it-all-down record of nuisance incidents. TVH must have collected a mountain of this paperwork on this issue by now, but there is no record of them taking any serious action arising from these records.

And the director's comments that this was the first specific complaint they have had from that locality is an insult to the many tenants on the estate who have complained.

I know personally of two families within 300 yards of my home who have demanded to be rehoused.

As for her comment that closing one or two 'rat-run' pathways on the estate would be an answer to the problem, Mrs Sarkar knows from her previous job as the council's housing manager that there are seven different ways for offenders to escape anywhere on the estate.

We have been campaigning for years to have all of these burglar and mugger-friendly pathways sealed off.

We see millions of pounds being spent on the Johnston Street area, but nothing for us. Our estate is rapidly going down the plughole, with boarded-up houses, shattered glass everywhere and broken manhole covers.

The estate is a magnet for the young urban terrorists from other areas to practice their skills. The last time our pathways were swept was when the Prime Minister visited the area last year.

I think it is time for a public meeting. Maybe then Mrs Sarkar will realise the extent of the suffering of many of the tenants on the Ashworth Street estate. Or is there hidden agenda to this saga? Are TVH planning to run the estate down, so that they can demolish it?

EDDIE DUXBURY (vice chairman of the former Bank Top Community Association), Arthur Way, Blackburn.