MP Gordon Birtwistle has taken up residents’ concerns

I feel I have to reply to the three-line rant by Sue Graham that accompanied my letter in the Express of September 23rd, which by the way was almost word for word the same rant by Julie Cooper in a letter published two weeks earlier.
Gordon BirtwistleGordon Birtwistle
Gordon Birtwistle

Gordon Birtwistle was, I am led to believe, contacted by a resident of this estate and asked to get involved and contact people regarding the subject of the travellers’ site, and in his defence at least he has not stooped to such infantile behaviour as to respond with a party political rant.

Far from getting his “pal” Eric Pickles to sort it out I would have thought the council were big girls and boys now and they should be able to reply to government and express the sense of local outrage over this issue. After all, is that not their job? Perhaps they expect people like myself to contact Eric Pickles, probably not a bad idea.

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As for the statement that our MP is just worrying the residents, does she not understand that this is what it is all about! We are worried!

All our MP has done is inform residents of an issue that the council should have informed them of. There are real people out here living real lives, with real concerns and issues, worried about little things to them like the value of their biggest lifetime investment, the cost of their homes, also the state of their environment and level of crime.

Neither of the two women has included in their rant any reply to any one issue raised in what must be thousands of replies on this lack of consultation subject, nor on the more specific issues raised. Their only response seems to be to lambast Gordon Birtwistle and to include party political back biting with the attitude that “well it’s not our fault what can we do about it!”

I have to say finally that I am deeply concerned about the level of competence of whoever is running this town, especially having listened to these people’s replies and their attitude to the people paying their wages.

J. Whittaker

Burnley