Cllr Ken Rhatigan's letter, "Council reply to Gazette column", in last week's Gazette was, to say the least, condescending. Let's just look at the facts.

If you become a councillor you can expect to be criticised, so don't go complaining if you are. To imply is to suggest, not accuse.

As for assertions, well there are a few going around over the Camrose saga, the main one being that the council has been asleep on this particular job; ground given to the borough ends up in the hands of a developer, who wouldn't have something to say about that?

But the one thing that really gets my goat is the very fact that the letter was written at all. All the palava we had recently about free speech and a certain borough councillor (whose name I won't mention, I had my say) and now we get the council leader telling the local paper off for saying what it thinks! Well talk about being a hypocrite, this takes the biscuit.

So in the traditional British spirit of free speech I'd just like to say this; the council have made a pig's ear of the Camrose football ground episode, you know it Cllr Rhatigan, I know it, and half the free world knows it.

So don't go saying the local paper is undermining the reputation of the council and its officers, on this particular issue the council and its officers have managed to do that quite well on their own.

Brian Simmonds, Belmont Heights, Hatch Warren, Basingstoke, RG22 4RW.