I READ with some interest Richard Senior's article in last week's edition of the Citizen.

While I appreciate that North British Housing Association is a non-political organisation, it is nevertheless heartening that they are prepared to come out and fight their corner against what is wrong.

I make no secret of the fact that I am a Tory politician, but I make no claim to self-righteousness.

As I read it, North British, the major housing provider at Clayton Brook, are perfectly entitled to disburse surplus cash at the end of a financial year as they deem appropriate and if that means helping a group of dedicated activists and volunteers who give freely their time and expertise, then so be it.

It would of course be unacceptable if all costs were to be covered by North British. But clearly that is not the case.

I know that the local volunteers are working extremely hard with little or no financial resources to provide a community wide service.

The question therefore is not whether they succeed or not, but rather how much of an effort goes into the venture.

It is therefore in the interests of all residents of Clayton to lend assistance, whether in cash or kind to build a facility we can all be proud of.

North British have taken the initiative and for their pains they have been criticised by some by some local Liberal Democrats.

What is galling is that the housing association is not in a position to respond freely and fully to all these attacks - and so it is our duty as citizens to support them and to defend the rights of all the residents on Clayton Brook.

Roger Livesey

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