I AM writing to say how disappointed I was to read the article "Village that's living in fear" in last week's Citizen. In my opinion, the article was both sensationalistic and an irresponsible piece of journalism.

Like many of our towns and villages Poulton-le-Fylde is not bereft of its problems. The Wyre Community Safety Partnership works very hard in an attempt to deal with community safety issues to help reduce crime and the fear of crime. Articles such as the one printed in The Citizen do nothing but hinder our efforts and indeed "rubbish" the good progress that has been made so far.

I also feel that we were not given any real chance to put our side of the story across -- if we had then the article would probably have read very differently. I trust then that we can expect to see a more balanced picture painted in a subsequent edition of The Citizen.

Poulton-le-Fylde is a great place to live, work and visit. We will continue to work hard to ensure that the town and indeed the whole of the borough is as safe and attractive as possible. This job would be made much easier if we had the support of The Citizen newspaper instead of the damaging headlines that seem to be preferred.

As an aside I would like to point out that Poulton-le-Fylde is in fact a town and not a village as detailed in the headline and the main body of the text.

Coun P Catlow, Wyre Borough Council, Civic Centre, Breck Road, Poulton-le-Fylde.

I FEEL it is important to point out that our story by Claire Fearn was a report of a public meeting attended by nearly 100 local residents who expressed their views on Poulton's expanding night life and rowdy behaviour that was affecting their lives. I cannot accept that it was either sensationalistic or irresponsible. Would Coun Catlow rather that we did not report such meetings and the genuine worries of residents? Perhaps she would prefer it to be kept "under the carpet".

Regarding Coun Catlow's complaint about not being able to put "their side of the story", Claire Fearn tried several times to contact Coun Catlow and left messages but to no avail. She also tried to talk to the council's chief executive but was told that he was away. She did get other views from the police and from MP Hilton Dawson - Editor.