WITH reference to last week's letter concerning Parkend Memorial Hall.

It appears to me that the Hall committee have worked extremely hard to make the building a safer and better place for all of the community, only to have it stolen away by a group of people who have contributed nothing to this work. This is a prime example of the practise of carpet bagging, where rent-a-crowd voting is used to gain control and then profit from their gain.

From reading other newspaper reports and letters, it looks like a planned campaign was waged against Parkend Memorial Hall. People who supposedly lived in a defunct area (the old rural district of West Dean) were encouraged to vote out a village hall committee. Other village hall committees should take note and make sure that this does not happen in their village.

People who did not live in the rural district of West Dean, when it did exist, cannot claim to be eligible to vote even if they live in that area now. It is a bit like going to live in Wales and then claiming to be a Welshman!

The trustees of Parkend Memorial Hall should stand up against cheating and declare the elections null and void and the leave it to the people of Parkend to decide on Parkend matters. – Concerned resident, Bream.