I would like to comment on a letter from Councillor Andrew Gardiner entitled Northern Smokescreen.

There is no smokescreen just another response from Cinderford to the tirade of paranoid rubbish appearing in letters each week from people, most of whom do not come from our town, who are against the Northern Quarter project, a project that will benefit generations of Foresters to come.

First we had a gigantic lake under the area, then there was 100ft high Hawkwell spoil tips that were in danger of slipping into the new college – oh by the way these tips were taken away and washed on Bowson Green in the 1960s.

And now we find the whole area that, according to these same people, is a wildlife gem now sits above the jaws of a toxic, gas-filled, opencast landfill site. I am amazed any of this wildlife is still alive.

Of course, according to Cllr Gardiner, we do not have a clue what is under our own area.

I am sorry councillor, I have friends that worked on this opencast project and they find your comments an absolute joke.

I have spoken to my colleague Cllr Lloyd Wilce, a Cinderford councillor for more than 64 years and former landlord of the Old Engine Inn opposite the Northern Quarter site who says there was never any landfill put into this opencast site.

The consented discharge points that were mentioned, where effluent chemical and industrial waste can be placed, are controlled by Severn Trent and is the main sewer outside the Winner Garage.

Only permitted material is put in at this point, this then flows down the valley through this sewer and does not go anywhere near the Northern Quarter.

What I find extremely strange is that Cllr Gardiner did not mention once that he was campaigning for this very road scheme in 1998, no mention of his very own Rainbow Valley scheme at Drybrook Quarry that included a giant car park on the Northern Quarter along with a horse-drawn tramway across this very site, what would have happened to this wildlife then?

What about this so-called 'toxic nightmare' under his proposed car park?

Finally I'd say to Andrew, when I talk to people from Ruardean their main interest is not so much Cinderford Northern Quarter – they are more concerned about parking problems in their village.

So perhaps this is where your attention as a councillor should be.

As Cinderford councillors and, as far as the Northern Quarter is concerned, we will listen to the experts and take their advice but we will not pay any regard to scaremongering.

– Cllr Graham Morgan (Lab), Forest of Dean District Council, Cinderford West.