FRUSTRATING as it must be for councils as landlords to have to give up the struggle to turn around problem housing estates, it is something, surely, that has to be accepted when renting the houses becomes impossible because no-one wants to live there.

We are at that point in Hyndburn where the council has given up trying to find tenants for homes on the Within Grove estate at Huncoat. Now, it is negotiating with a private firm to pull down houses there and replace them with a modern, community-centred housing scheme.

And such private-sector remedies for the local authority housing headache in East Lancashire have been increasingly sought -- as both Burnley and Blackburn with Darwen councils have transferred their stock to companies in the social housing business.

Much as it may grate to see the abandonment of all their past efforts to improve and make their council housing attractive, it is no doubt also with relief that the town halls find themselves relieved of the financial millstones that go with the role of landlord.

For the departure that Hyndburn reaches today at Huncoat is mirrored by the state of affairs that Blackburn with Darwen and Burnley had to cope with just two years ago -- when the former was faced by a repairs bill of £100million that was impossible to meet and the latter had the most empty and unwanted council houses in the country.

Much of the problem stems from the best and most marketable council houses have long since been bought under right-to-buy legislation and social change -- of an increasingly better-off generation wanting homes of their own -- reducing the demand for that which is left.

But if councils have made serious and often-laudable efforts to improve their housing they have also to decide when to stop throwing good money after bad and let the private sector confront the task.

It is just a pity that many good council houses, the homes of diligent tenants who have striven to improve their neighbourhoods, have been dragged down in reputation and transfer value in the process.