ACCORDING to Walt Meadows (Letters, February 22) the Labour Party has spent 50 years "decimating our inner cities and towns by demolishing row upon row of terrace houses and replacing them with dysfunctional tower blocks and sink estates."

Obviously, Mr Meadows' selective amnesia conveniently ignores the fact that for 35 of the last 50 years the Conservative Party has been in office!

Many of the big cities and towns also had Conservatives in charge of local government during that time.

Indeed, after the war Labour's commitment to quality, rather than simply quantity, in public housing was broken by the subsequent Conservative Government's abolition of controls, minimisation of facilities built into new homes and liberation of the private sector.

This directly led to the building of the "dysfunctional tower blocks and sink estates" outlined by Mr Meadows.

Is Mr Meadows also saying that old terrace houses should be retained irrespective of their condition - even if they suffer from instability or are unfit for habitation?

This attitude will only lead to a return of the slum conditions suffered in the past, surely something no-one wishes to see.

COUN DAVE SMITH (Sunnyhurst Ward), Avondale Road, Darwen.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.