THE purpose of this letter is to clarify some of the points made by Val Kirby and Shelagh Hume of the Countryside Agency in last week's Review.

I contacted the Countryside Agency and asked them two questions. "How much of the £1 million for the Forest of Dean would be spent on salaries?" and "Could they advise of what their consultation policy is?" To date, they have been unable to respond to me, positively, on both subjects. Instead they choose to respond via the Review.

I estimated in my last letter to the Review and because Val Kirby refused to answer my questions, the salaries based on comments made in public speeches by Val Kirby. In her letter she states that their salaries will be around £120,000, whilst in the Countryside Agency's draft IRD document the actual figures are £137,000. Val also forgot to advise that money to run the office side would come "from other agency teams" and "boosted by sums levered in from other programmes such as Vital Villages, rural transport funds etc." In other words, she intends to take funds from other projects to fund the office functions – nice one.

Val and Shelagh then talk about IRD, a subject I totally support if promoted in conjunction with a discussion, leading to adoption of a Special Status for the Forest.

Val and Shelagh failed to advise how we will get to the Special Status position and tried to convince everyone that their ideas (not ours – remember they both work in Bristol and have no association with the Forest area) are best and that non-statutory wishy-washy agreements will safeguard the Dean. I am still waiting eagerly for the follow-up meetings that were to be organised by Land Use Consultants (on behalf of the Countryside Agency) to discuss the subject.

They also talk at length about the Regeneration Partnership, an unelected quango, and intend to run most of the planned actions through the Partnership Executive. Once again they did not explain that this executive holds its strange meetings in secret – very transparent.

Then came the statement about the Draft Project Plan being nearly ready. So far they are unable to advise who makes the decisions on what went into the plan or who will make the final decision (it's called a consultation policy). Shame about the parish councils and other local organisations who have not actually had any input to it (or even been invited) and shame about the shallow promises made by the Countryside Agency Board to have transparent consultation.

So to summarise, we have a "nearly ready" draft plan with no transparent method of consultation, flowing through partnerships with no transparency and lots of waffle.

And what did they achieve in the year 2000/2001? They assisted the Forestry Commission in marketing wood, with grant money that should have gone to the people of the Forest of Dean!

I look forward to the next two years of the Val Kirby plan. – R. Freshwater, Bemerton, Crown Lane, Yorkley.