WE are used to being dumped on in the northern area of the city.

When the government allocated millions of pounds to regenerate run-down city areas we received a paltry few thousands, while other areas were gifted millions.

As a result, Swaythling and Mansbridge remain among the most deprived urban areas in the UK, with infrastructure barely coping with the problems caused by this situation.

At the time I put this unfair allocation down to the lack of Labour councillors in this part of the city - the ruling party at that time being Labour.

I am therefore totally mystified by the council's wish to place a travellers site in Mansbridge, alongside the Swaythling boundary, especially as our local councillors are predominately, at present, Lib Dem and are supposed to be running the show now.

We in this part of the city are struggling with the effects of deprivation. Despite the best efforts of staff we have local schools that are suffering, NHS provision in the area is sadly lacking especially with regard to the availability of dentists, with no walk-in centres and difficult access to the hospitals for those with no transport of their own, and the police definitely do not have the resources to cope with the problems around crime with which we are cursed.

In short, placing a travellers' site in the proposed spot would cause intolerable suffering to not just the indigenous population but also to the travellers themselves who would be placed into an already deprived part of the city.

There are far more appropriate places to site this camp, which have much better access to NHS provision.

However I suspect putting the camp on one of these sites would upset someone who actually matters.

ALAN KEBBELL, Southampton