UNFORTUNATELY I was not able to be at the planning meeting last Wednesday, but it would appear that they have extended the Town Hall if there were, quote, 'hundreds of Stockton Heath villagers ..." This is no longer a village it is a suburb of Warrington south.

At the February meeting there were 154 people attending (counted personally, due to exaggerated figures given out by the objectors and Press when they said there were 400 plus at the December Parish Council meeting, they must have been standing in London Road).

The Town Hall entrance hall and side room were quite full then. When it comes to objectors/approvers letters, etc of objection/support, I wrote to the planning dept. advising them of the vote on the Guardian web site. They did not even know that there was a vote, at that time (well over a month ago) there were 61 for and 12 against.

I personally have been libelled by two objectors after which I took legal advice but unfortunately they left the February Parish Council meeting before I read out a prepared statement from myself. It is alleged that after the meeting (14th) the behaviour and attitude of one of the main objectors in what he said to a young lady was absolutely disgraceful. There have been slanderous comments from some of the main objectors against the planning dept., planning committee, developers.

These are the type of people who are running this objection campaign and who the public, having read the mis-information put out on the pamphlets, are blindly following. Who is paying for the paper, printing, equipment, etc for all these pamphlets? Who is going to pay for a judicial review? It will not be the Parish Council.

I am sure that when the less than eight restaurants are completed, many of the 'hundreds of villagers' will visit and have good food. Unlike many of the objection writers I will put my name to this as I feel my integrity, which was brought libellously into question by two objectors, has been shown by my continual support for this vast improvement at the Victoria Buildings (it is not the Hilal Corner) to life in Stockton Heath.

GRAHAM ROUGHSEDGE,

Parish councillor