REGARDING Mr D Pratt's remarks (Letters, August 28) concerning the new pub in Broadway, Accrington, the town does need a pub or two on Broadway. It would create a vital link between the popular Whalley Road/Burnley Road circuit and the town centre 'square.'

Presently, Broadway is a no-go area. It is a dimly-lit, forbidding place that attracts muggers and other pond-life. A few lights and signs of life would eradicate this problem.

Council workers having to sweep up the mess? Do they not, then, sweep Broadway anyway?

Encourage the town centre tipplers? They may wish to sit inside or on benches outside, rather than in the gardens or in Marks and Spencer doorway. Give them a venue and they may disappear.

Increased threat of broken shop windows? Wetherspoons target group and the likely customers and shoppers and '30-somethings.' Neither of whom cause trouble, behave violently or smash windows. The likelihood is that by stretching the route out you will decrease the numbers congregating around Church Street. Fewer people in one place equals a diminished threat of trouble.

Will this pub not create jobs in our employment-depressed borough? Will it not fill the void left by three more absent shopkeepers? Will it not help to bring in more trade from out-of-towners eager to swell the bank balances of our kebab shop proprietors, landlords and taxi drivers?

What's next, Mr Pratt? No more discount supermarkets because they encourage low-income, single parent families into the community where they will lower house prices, thus devastating the local economy? Do us all a favour, Mr Pratt, and look at the wider picture.

R RUSSELL, Burnley Road, Accrington.