SIR: I have become increasingly alarmed by the number of articles and letters in your newspaper regarding objections to proposed work in the Farnworth and Kearsley areas.

The most recent was the letter in the BEN of July 11 regarding the proposed Industrial Development in Kearsley. That letter asked the question why such a development needs to take place.

Another letter and article related to proposed housing development off Highfield Road in Farnworth where house building is proposed on land which contains two football pitches.

While I am sure that most people who put pen to paper have an interest in such matters, I feel that all the letters and articles have missed the real reason for the urgency of such developments, possibly because their focus has been on their own interests.

The fact is that these developments have been made possible because of a Single Regeneration Grant (SRG) which is shared with Salford. Therefore, the answer to the questions of - 'Why do we need an additional industrial estate?', and "Why do we put additional housing in an area where there already is a large concentration? - is that, because the SRG is available, we need to allocate the monies before it is withdrawn.

However, I, too, fail to understand where these ideas for the two developments have come from. Certainly no-one has consulted us regarding how we feel the area needs regeneration, or even whether the proposed developments will, indeed, regenerate the area.

I feel that these decisions, while probably not made in haste, have not been properly thought through with the views of the people of Farnworth and Kearsley being sought and could easily become a grant to singularly degenerate the areas.

I would like to ask firstly, where the ideas for these developments came from? And, secondly, why the people of Farnworth and Kearsley were not involved in those decisions.

Lastly, if the criteria is to increase the number of private housing in the Highfield area, one other way to achieve this would be to give ownership of the existing Council-owned houses to the people living in them. For each £1 million of the grant, some 63 privately-owned properties would then be created. Perhaps your readers will feel this is almost as crazy as the two developments already proposed.

A Hankinson

Kestrel Avenue, Farnworth

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