HAVING read with some interest Chris Lloyd’s assessment of Ben Houchen’s progress (Echo, May 11), it appears to me that a more valid comment is that he has achieved nothing but the creation of a well oiled self propaganda press machine.

Everything else has been delivered by authorities that pre-existed his office. The latest announcement on the airport saga tells us nothing apart from that he now places himself beyond inquiry at least for the time being.

Chris Lloyd can’t don a “Robin Day head” and ask some hard questions about what he means by “control of the airport” and “private operator coming in to run it”.

These hard questions need to be asked because the present owner of the airport is Peel Holdings which is a very large privately owned investment company with wide interests in land developments involving industrial sites.

It certainly rings alarm bells in my head when the matter of the huge area of industrial land adjacent to one of the best deep water ports in the country is in the purview of Mr Houchen, who is now shielded with Peel Holdings behind a screen of “non disclosure agreement”.

I leave readers to make their own assessments of the likely matters on the agendas of future meetings between Mr Houchen and Peel Holdings, although a new garden town springs to my mind. Oh and a likely location. Oh and a linked development of old industrial land located well to the east of the garden town or am I letting my imagination run too wild?

I leave that to readers to make their assessments on that as well.

Peter Hanafin, Middleton St George