BY THE time you read this I shall be gone from Lancaster, having chosen to move out after 4 years.

It is not a sad farewell, by any means.

I am leaving behind a dirty little town, which shall sadly never reach its true potential because of the parochial, small-minded and mean spirited leadership.

The litter-strewn and beggar-ridden city centre is a disgrace when you could so easily be proudly showing off a beautiful Garden City of the North West.

I have had the great misfortune of living in the Primrose area with its preponderance of students.

Every morning at 2.30 the richer ones are disgorged from thumping diesel engined taxis, waking us all up so that we could not only enjoy their inane drunken banter, but also to ensure that we would be awake in plenty of time for their poorer cousins who have made the long trek up the hill from the squalor of the City Centre.

As a reflection of their sense of injustice at actually having to walk somewhere they have left a trail of broken bottles, half-eaten pizzas, piles of vomit and various, humorously scattered, road-signs in their wake.

Unfortunately the long uphill slog has not taken their breath away, or their youthful spirit as they hold impromptu street parties.

I have despaired at the filthy local residents, who feel that leaving their rubbish in the back lane for 6 days is as good a way of disposing of it as leaving it out on the morning of the actual collection; and I have despaired at the lack of action on this by the uncaring council members who are presumably rich enough to live elsewhere.

As I leave I see the ridiculous one-way system in my rear view mirror and I wave it an unfond farewell, laughing cynically at the citizens' inability to get together a meaningful consensus to affect a desperately needed change to this road, which is such a blight on their lives.

I shall not miss trying to find a pub in the city centre which has not succumbed to poor beer, loud TV and thumping music in their quest for the all pervasive student pound.

But I shall especially not miss the dearly derided mindless bunch of incompetents at the council, with their efforts to revive the lost cause of tourism in the foulness of Morecambe by mis-spending the money they force out of Lancaster's long-suffering folk; with one of the highest Council Tax rates in the country yet one of the lowest levels of service.

They are your weakest link...

goodbye.

Michael Donkin

Lately of: Vincent St

Lancaster