IN your letters page of November 23, was a letter from P and B Hardwick, Clitheroe, regarding the RVBC policy and finance committee refusal to sell land for the building of a mosque that would only (so we keep getting told) be used for 15 people.

The writers condemned elected councillors for deciding that the land should only be used for much needed housing for the town.

May I put a few details to clarify some of the items mentioned by them?

First of all the policy and finance committee does not deal with any planning applications for Ribble Valley Borough Council.

The meeting was held to debate what would be the best use for a plot of land (that is valued on the open market at some £400,000) in the centre of Clitheroe Town.

At the meeting three main points were to be discussed:

1. The land to be used for much needed housing only.

2. The sale of part of the land to a local joiner, a security company and a religious association (that was to have split it into three parts).

3. The use of part of the land for housing with the other parts sold to any or all of the above in item two.

Now in the discussion that followed it was obvious from the statements of a minority of people on the committee and a senior executive of RVBC that they had no intention of doing the best for the majority of the Clitheroe residents.

It appeared to all onlookers that their intention was to badger the committee into one decision regardless of what the majority wanted and that was the sale of part of the land to this religious association.

The majority on the committee in their wisdom and taking into consideration the fact that Clitheroe Town has a waiting list of 400 people for a total housing stock of some 600 and a further additional waiting list of another 415 people for sheltered accommodation out of a stock of 600, decided that building housing or sheltered accommodation to house some of the 800 Clitheroe folk who are desperate to live in their own town had preference over any other item on discussion.

R J M LOEBELL, Edisford Road, Clitheroe.