IT Seems that the days of Charles Dickens are to return to Leigh - disease, pestilence, plague.

People are not going to be able to leave their homes for fear of cancer, bronchitis, asthma and most of the other illnesses known to mankind.

Do the people of of Hope Carr and the wider area of Leigh honestly believe that the Environment Department of Wigan MBC are going to allow the development of Xanadu if this propaganda put forward by the Green Party is the truth?

Of course not. This is a clear case of fear tactics and scaremongering being used to paint a picture of a holocaust in order to dupe local people - the unproven, unsubstantiated claims of the Green Party and others are an insult to our intelligence. My family and I live in Lowton and I do not yet feel the urge to rush out and buy a gas mask.

If Xanadu goes ahead it will only be after exhaustive environmental tests and following full discussion with all parties concerned. If Xanadu goes ahead then Leigh will have the opportunity to be a thriving town once more because the Xanadu project will bring much more local investment and improvements in the local infrastructure.

The pits and the mills have gone and local people cannot survive on promises of Utopia, they are much more realistic than that.

The Green Party have made the Xanadu project a political issue and who can blame them, they have little else to go on! We have yet to hear what they intend to do about the issues that the people of Hope Carr really care about - employment, education, housing, crime, road safety and others.

When will these issues be discussed so the electorate can make a real and informed judgement? The truth is that being a councillor carries a great deal more responsibility than organising picnics in fields. The people of Hope Carr know this and will make their own judgement on November 6.

Mark Hale

Labour Party candidate and Hope Carr resident

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