I hope you will allow me to respond to the letter from Coun Roger Hollingworth in the June issue of your magazine.
I cannot help but think that this response, ably assisted by T Gillespie, is little more than a party political agenda.
I fully understand that due process of lawful actions cannot and should not be unduly interfered with and that lobbying of councillors in order to prejudice their decision is not to be encouraged.
However, a disclosure of facts, including the fact of the existence of a 160-plus signed petition, presented by the residents, would not, I believe, be considered as lobbying.
I still have not had an answer as to what actually happened to that petition once it arrived at the Council House in July 2007.
Why was this document’s existence not made known before the planning committee sat, in September 2007?
Coun Hollingworth’s dismissal of the relevance of the infill within the Hopwood hamlet gives encouragement to the likes of Baroness Andrews and her non-elected body.
Surely, the duty of Coun Hollingworth, Julie Kirkbride MP and all other right-thinking politicians is to listen to their voting public and stringently resist the setting up of and authority of such bodies. That is what true democracy is all about – the electorate first, the party second.
Let us have no more of this bickering; I personally do not and never have placed any blame for the Hopwood development at the feet of Coun Hollingworth or Julie Kirkbride.
All I ask is that they and all other right-minded politicians get back to listening to and acting on behalf of the British Public, not their party. Or any other political party for that matter.
Peter Higgins, Hopwood