IT is perhaps a shame that as one of the councillors named as having resigned from Lydney Town Council in a newspaper story headed 'Double by-election to cost taxpayers £4,000', I was not contacted. Had I been so perhaps a more balanced account would have been printed.

There was no political reason behind my resignation, indeed one Labour and one Conservative councillor resigned in the same month thus negating any inference of political manoeuvring. I was elected at a by-election in January and took my seat at the February meeting of Lydney Town Council. After four months of meetings both formal and informal I felt that I could not continue to work for the town in the atmosphere prevailing and in the environment which exists within the town council both in terms of councillors and the administration of the council.

The fact that seven councillors have resigned within the past 13 months from a total of 15 (this excludes the sad death of Cllr Frank Williams but includes district councillors Judy Davis who, having been co-opted, decided she did not wish to take up her seat for what I believe to be similar reasons to my own), is perhaps indicative of deeper problems within Lydney Town Council.

The 10 local electors (minimum) who have requested the by-elections must feel that co-option is not the best route for selection of new councillors; maybe as co-option can, of course, be politically engineered. These residents are using their democratic right to call for a by-election and I can only hope that the candidates who ultimately fill the vacant seats are resilient. It is not a question of the amount of time involved in being a councillor - and it does take time - but specifically the atmosphere in which this voluntary task is undertaken that needs to be considered.

Any individual who wishes to see a copy of my resignation letter can request the same from the clerk to the council. Under the Freedom of Information Act it should be made available to any interested party.

– Jan Cordon, Montpellier Road, Bream.