THE hypocritical behaviour of the city council leadership is reprehensible.

Cllr Henig's letter last week was just another example of the way they totally gloss over the truth to justify their actions.

In his letter he quotes an internal memo from me which, he states, demonstrated my support for the concept of a Crinkley Bottom theme park. He dates this memo at October 20, 1993, and in this he is quite right. But this was some three weeks or so before the meeting at which the Crinkley Bottom theme park idea was first raised. My memo, as Cllr Henig knows, referred to my earlier suggestion to theme the illuminations in Happy Mount Park (at a cost of £80,000).

It is sad that these people insist on playing politics and don't appear to care about the truth.

If they did care about the truth perhaps Cllr Derrick Stanley would have continued to support me through the council's disciplinary process against me.

He attended as a supportive witness at the original hearing and was in a position to know the truth having attended the tourism department on innumerable occasions over the seven-year period of his chairmanship.

However, he felt unable to attend the appeal and I have been told by other councillors, officers and independent witnesses that this was because he had been threatened with the loss of his committee chairmanship should he continue to support me. Could this be true? If so I will let your readers judge what sort of people are capable of such actions.

David Christley,

Morecambe.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.