• STEPHEN Taylor, the chair of Hampstead Neighbour­hood Forum, accuses me of talking through my hat in complaining that HNF had been allowed to propose moving the 168 bus stand to Fleet Road, because they did not suggest a specific site, (I can clarify the role of the Hampstead Neighbourhood Forum, September 10).

But, obviously, if they did not offer a new site within their area they were proposing to move it to ours.

But Mr Taylor is right that, as I had hoped I made clear in my September 3 letter, the real blame belongs not to HNF but to Camden Council for accepting their proposals without consultation in Gospel Oak ward.

The most significant line in Mr Taylor’s letter is “energetic South End Green Association members and ward councillors grasped the opportunity”.

Quite. As Tahir Nawaz (Businesses along Fleet Road will lose trade because customers can’t park, August 27), and others, have pointed out SEGA are now using the lockdown to obtain, without public discussion, what they and their allies could not achieve in open debate in 2005. But they can only do so because Camden goes along with them.

I do not blame the “energetic” Conservative councillors for Hampstead ward for pushing for their constituents’ perceived interests; but the supine Labour councillors for Gospel Oak ward who so far as I can see have done nothing to defend theirs.

I emailed all three of them asking what they proposed to do about the bus stand. None replied.

And, apart from questions of justice or fairness, if Camden Council jumps to it when Conservative councillors ask for something, at the expense of a Labour-voting ward, what message is that giving to voters?

JOHN WILSON,
NW3