A TOUR of some of the area's worst pockets of deprivation awaits Housing Minister Lord Falconer when he visits Darwen and Rossendale next month.

Darwen and Rossendale MP Janet Anderson is ready to greet the Minister on October 19.

Mrs Anderson says she hopes to show him difficulties faced in the area -- particularly from privately owned terraced housing which has low capital value and results in houses in the area standing empty.

In her letter to the housing minister she said: "This means that we have many empty properties in this sector, as we do indeed in the public sector but it also means that private landlords increasingly rent their houses to those on housing benefit, which is producing small but significantly important pockets of run down areas -- in short ghettoes."

She added that in recent months more asylum seekers were "being deposited in these areas which inevitably has exacerbated the problems of social deprivation."

Mrs Anderson also points out that a large number of roads, bridges and walls are not maintained in Rossendale because they are unadopted and do not belong to the council.