AN edition of the Citizen does not seem complete these days without a letter from Cllr Barker attacking Cllr Heath. I'm sure your readers must be getting bored, especially because the more hysterical he becomes, the less clear it is what he is trying to get at. My explanation might be helpful.

What it is all about is the notorious non-existent side-agreement with Unique and what is important, who knew in 1994, that the side-letter had never been signed.

Cllr Henig knew "seven months into the project", Cllr Barker knew, because he overheard a conversation the chairman of finance was having with someone or other. Other members of the Labour group may have known. No one knows what the Conservatives knew but what is for sure is that two groups of people were deliberately kept in the dark, the public and members of the Independent group. Cllr Barker is easing his conscience by pretending that Tricia Heath too, knew the truth. But she didn't. Cllr Henig and his cronies sat on this information when they ought to have launched an investigation.

Cllr Barker is trying to make two rather silly points, first that Cllr Heath ought to have asked about the side letter in late '94. Second, that if she or any of the Independents had asked, officers would have told us that, like other councillors, we had information withheld from us in March, April and May 1994.

We didn't ask about the side letter and why should we have? We were entitled to assume that the senior councillors and officers who were negotiating with Unique about the arrangements for 1995 were doing so honourably, using all the arguments at their disposal. With hindsight this may have been a foolish assumption, but it was reasonable in 1994. Unlike Cllr Barker we didn't know that officers had been producing misleading reports.

What if we had asked anyway? Cllr Barker's assumption that officers would have confessed that we had not been given the full facts is farcical. The renegotiation of the contract (where it now appears that once again important information was withheld from councillors) meant the side letter no longer applied. This was never mentioned at the time, but it was one of the consequences of giving Noel Edmonds a fee of £1,000,000 instead of £120,000. Does Cllr Barker really maintain that officers would have confessed that councillors had been deceived, when all they had to say was that the side letter was now redundant?

Cllr Barker makes play with the fact that Cllr Heath was one of the group of councillors who agreed to try to clear up the post-Crinkley Bottom mess. Yes, she was, and I can assure you that if Cllr Barker had told her the truth about how we had got into this mess, instead of keeping it to himself, she and I and others would have demanded an explanation there and then. That is what Cllrs Henig and Barker should have done. Perhaps they could now tell us why the didn't?

Cllr G Wilson

Morcambe Bay

Independents

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