DERELICTION is not only an affront to the eye, it is a cancer that attacks the sense of community.

So says a report today on its effect in the North West - where more people than in any other region regard their area as run-down, depressing and unsafe.

But what the study also uncovers is a downward attitude spiral in such cases.

People become apathetic and believe nothing can be done to improve their surroundings.

In particular, youngsters lose any sense of belonging to their community.

And the upshot is that the area becomes even more run down.

We do not quibble with these findings on dereliction's negative psychological impact.

For all that is, in effect, being said is that if a place looks like a dump, it becomes treated as one.

However, our view - based on our integral role in the community and our seven-year Grimewatch clean-up campaign in East Lancashire - is that this negative is being resolutely combated by an increasingly positive outlook among thousands of people in our region.

For there is an upward attitude spiral, too; one which, in our experience, has seen improvement and protection of the environment - urban and rural - being given a higher priority now than ever before.

It is an approach that involves not just the actual environmental agencies like the Tidy Britain Group and the Groundwork trusts - the spread of which right across our region is also testimony to the healthy upsurge to which we point - but also local authorities, employers, business, voluntary bodies and countless concerned individuals.

And it has, in hundreds of instances in recent years, not only stimulated ever-increasing awareness of the environment, but has also physically reclaimed whole swathes of derelict land and, in the process, restored community pride and reduced vandalism.

Even so, in a region like the North West, with its legacy of industrial upheaval and decline, the fight against dereliction and its dispiriting effects on those surrounded by it remains a huge one.

But what is encouraging to us is that no longer is our sub-region of East Lancashire unconcerned about the challenge and nor is it daunted by it.

We've rolled our sleeves up and we are doing something about improving our environment.

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