I WRITE in connection with the County Council’s Durham Plan, the independent inspector’s interim report, and the council’s attempt to sidestep or justify its stance opposing the inspector’s comments and recommendations.

We now can read the Inspector’s reply to the Council’s proposals and comments, and they do not make for comforting reading.

His comments include phrases such as: “The council’s concerns in this regard are not accepted; I do not accept that the spirit of the procedural guidance was breached or that there was procedural unfairness in this regard; suffice it to say, it is not accepted that any participant in the examination has been denied an effective opportunity to make representations such that there has been any breach of natural justice”, and “Accordingly, I can give only very little weight to this report.”

I ask the following simple question: “In the light of the inspector’s replies will the council now accept the inevitable, scrap the plan, and start again’?

Mike Cunningham, Durham City.