THE last two editions of the Gazette have revealed Halstead Town Council turned down an opportunity to move to the former police station.

This may or may not have been a better alternative to Queen’s Hall.

I don’t know and neither does anyone else unless they are one of Halstead’s 12 town councillors.

The real issue here is councillors made this decision, which is very important locally, without taking it through the proper process of a public council meeting.

There was no notice of meeting on a public noticeboard, no agenda or report available for the public, no council meeting open to the public and no public record of the decision.

In this the public seems to have been denied many of the rights which the law bestows on it. The ability to express a view before the event rather than, pointlessly, afterwards being one of them.

On the other hand, it is possible to have some admiration for this original and audacious method of avoiding the tiresome inclusion of the proletariat.

If it were not for a brilliant piece of investigative journalism from the Halstead Gazette none of us would have known anything about this.

R G Richmond

Monklands Court