IT has now been some months since Winter Hey Lane was put back to normal and I for one am glad to see things back as things were. However, despite reading all the local council reports, press reports, meetings with councillors, officers and others who had pushed forward the pedestrian zoning, I still cannot understand to this day why the Council was so adamant that the pedestrian zone should go ahead.

What is further bewildering is that the Councillors continued to insist that the pedestrian zone should stay despite the opposition from local traders, local shoppers and the level of bad press it attracted all before elections.

Even now there seems to be a lot that is being kept from the public about the functioning of the Council in such matters. An example is the Horwich Town Centre Management Committee. The group was named by Councillor Kilcoyne (YOUR VIEWS, July 2) as being the representatives of local opinion and their influence, he said, led to the pedestrian zoning "The move to close Winter Hey Lane came from the Horwich Town Centre Management Committee." He goes on to say "this controversial matter was devised by local people themselves." Yet J. Johnson, a local trader,told me: 'I, along with many other traders, was not aware of the existence of such a body, or how it was formed, or who sits on it.' (YOUR VIEWS, July 14). To this day, that information has not been made public.

This mysterious group whose members seem to be hand-picked by an elite bunch at the council, while being highly influential in the future of Horwich, is not even formally recognised, has no constitution, is unaccountable and the minutes are not available to the public. Yet, from the conversations I had with officers, the Council seems to indirectly fund this mysterious group. Each of the eight BMBC towns, I was told, has one of these mysterious groups.

Telephone, letters and faxes have so far drawn a blank in getting an explanation as to the workings of such mysterious groups. Just asking about such things seems to put the Council officers into a spin. An explanation is well overdue.

Paul Lacey,

Cheriton Gardens,

Horwich.

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