A PARISH council has been accused of using a church-funded magazine to publish its opposititon a multi-million pound development in a depressed Weardale village.

A resident believes Wolsingham parish council is using the Town Crier magazine to stir up ill-feeling against an £8.8m internet park proposed for the outskirts of the village.

Wakefield-based firm, The Rural Workspace and Housing Association, wants to transform a 17-acre site at Harperley into a computerised business park that would bring investment and employment to the area.

But its plans fall outside the area's local plan and the company has rejected other possible sites.

Wolsingham parish council supports the idea of a purpose-built computerised business park but believes the location is unacceptable.

Now it has run into controversy over two articles placed in the Town Crier, which is delivered free to village residents.

Anita Atkinson, a Wolsingham School governor and editor of the Weardale Gazette, lives alongside the proposed site.

She said: "Weardale is dying, business is sliding and even the youngsters are moving out. The internet isn't just the future, it is the present. It is really crazy that a grassroots council can object when there's employment being offered. Things keep going in the Town Crier to influence people in the parish."

The council denies there is a hidden agenda behind publishing articles outlining problems with the proposed location.

Council spokesman Coun Vere Shuttleworth denied suggestions the articles were an abuse of a church-funded publication, saying the council was planning to part-fund the magazine.

He said: "These are community pieces in a community paper which is a mixture of allsorts of things that relate to Weardale."