[Graham Jones]

Hi Bob,

I don't think HBC admisnister education, thats LCC. In reality though government dictat on curriculum along with independent schools, primarliy church, means LCC have very little control over educational standards.

I agree with Housing and would add this: we are about to pull down allegedly slum terraced housing and rather than build spacious green, larger houses to mix the tenure and household type we are going to build more shoeboxes. In which we are encouraging previous residents to move back in; the same poor people, or new poor people [in general], who can only for the most part afford shoe box housing. And we are building to almost the same density with, in most cases, lower quality build than the old terraced. You then have to question whether the small open spaces created in the new developments will also be quickly ravaged by nature and problematic individuals and lack of maintenance.

I don't think we are breaking the spiral of decline [and knock on ill health etc..]. As market forces kick in and the economically mobile move outwards and upwards to fulfull their dreams, the new areas will be for those at the bottom of the ladder. We are in dannger of building the slums of tomorrow today in my view.

Low paid employment is much harder. Its a question of basic economics. If Hyndburn is lacking in educational attainment then we produce things at a greater cost and less efficiently. Less ability to enterprise, less new business's, less creative or cutting edge business's, less profit, less money, lower wages, more brain drain, higher costs because we are away from the Franco/German/Benelux economic heart/centre. If you made the new Techonolgy Park successful at Whitebirk then those people coining it in over there would then simply use their new wealth to live in the Ribble Valley and shop in Manchester, certainly not Hyndburn. We get a halo effect possibly. Hyndburn's only major employment market historically is to work harder for less. Two words; Express Gifts. Of course it would be great to break the mold but our neighbours in Burnley have the lowest IQ in the country supposedly and we're right next door. The answer lies somewhere between better education facilities, a quality university for East Lancs, attracting large scale inward investment with employers who build up a skilled workforce, and making people believe in Hyndburn as a cutting edge place, a place to live and work.

As long as kids believe smashing up bus stops and dossing all night is creative then there is little hope of creating wealth which is dependent not on a few people earning a lot but a lot of people earning more. And as long as people slag off destructive kids and wider youth, authenticating destructive behaviour as an acceptable sub-culture to those within it, instead of helping, then the longer Hyndburn stays at the poorer end of the scale.