I WOULD like to support Michael Birchall's comments (BEN: June 23) when he states Farnworth suffers again as a result of a poor standard of representation.

Mr Birchall stated that Dr Iddon knew of the problem of the Green Lane Railway Bridge seven years ago and, if this is true, what did he do about it? Paramedics are now reporting that up to two to three minutes are lost getting to the Royal Bolton Hospital due to the Green Lane road closures.

The Bolton Evening News reported that 40 per cent of ambulances in Bolton are failing to reach life-threatening incidents within the government's eight minute target time. Now I read in the BEN that a shortage of trained paramedics has left up to half of Bolton's ambulance crews unable to provide full medical treatment in life or death situations.

I remember Dr Iddon promising, in January 1997, that if elected to Parliament he pledged to the people of Farnworth he would get rid of Quangos and, at a stroke, he would remove 100,000 from the waiting lists.

If Dr Iddon spent more time on sorting out the real needs of Farnworth and the area as he was elected to do, maybe a lot of these problems wouldn't exist.

Meanwhile, after nearly five years of Labour rule, we still wait anxiously for the first bit of good news towards the benefit of our area.

Christine Adams

Brook Street

Farnworth

Bolton