NO doubt some of your readers will have been as shocked and saddened as I was by last week's gratuitous and nasty personal attack on me by Labour Cllr Derrick Stanley in your letters pages. Shocked because, although Cllr Stanley may be many things, few I think, would have had him down as vicious and offensive as this letter apparently reveals.

But I think his letter reveals far more than this, for his unwarranted attack (which contains inaccuracies) proves to me that he is, in fact, a very worried councillor whose poor performance and slavish support of a discredited leading Labour group have seen his grip on his election seat loosen day by day - so typically we see the actions of an anxious local politician, cruelly besmirching the name of his opponents, in a desperate bid to have anything at all to say.

I am sure your readers and the electorate can see this shameful behaviour for what it is and will vote accordingly. It is also interesting to note isn't it the precise references and dates referred to by Cllr Stanley in his letter. It seems funny that such precise references and notes kept throughout the Blobby fiasco by council officers (which eventually revealed to an unsuspecting public what an unmitigated cock-up the whole thing was from beginning to end) and, the notes made by the tribunal barrister in the David Christley hearing, have been totally ignored by Cllr Stanley and his acolytes, who seem unwilling and/or unable to account for such gaffes to the public.

Cllr Stanley and his Labour cohorts have an incredible inability to operate in a professional manner. If he had simply bothered to spend some of his time to find out all the facts before tearing off like a bull in a china shop, he would have come to the opposite conclusion and not made such a fool of himself. I can only conclude that he doesn't know better, doesn't care or both, because he would have also found a letter from the city council's solicitor of March 1997stating the following:

"I confirm that your company's entitlement to compensation has been set off ag ainst the debts. As a result, there is no outstanding obligations from either the city council to your company of from the company to the city council, under the terms of the agreement."

Cllr Stanley and his colleagues have done immense damage to the area's development potential - and he knows that - so what is there left for him to do other than behave in such a way? And I have to say to Cllr Stanley that at least what I attempted to do was a private venture using private funds and I didn't waste more than £2m of taxpayers' money - can you say that councillor?

Finally, I sleep well at night, knowing that I did my very best and intend to conduct my campaign in an honourable manner - can you say the same or do you now regret your shameful behaviour?

Nick Westwell

MBI candidate, Harbour ward

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.