I AM amazed at the amount of letters Cllr Barker has written to the press defending the Labour Party's policies. Does he actually believe that building new properties on the outer circle of the city is correct when, in the inner circle, there are so many properties for sale causing the devaluation of property?

Or is it a question of selling council land for the benefit of putting more money into the budget ie. Poulton Square and land at the back of Happy Mount Park?

By doing what they are doing they are causing people to let off properties in the inner circle as they cannot sell them because the valuation has dwindled.

The best way forward for Morecambe would be to stop any more new developments and let builders buy the inner circle properties such as the West End and turn them into proper self-contained flats for first time buyers because you will never get building societies to loan money to first time buyers while they have a glut of properties in the rural areas.

Brian Pearson,

Morecambe Street,

Morecambe.

I'm sure we've not heard the last of this! Ed.

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