CLLR Valerie Letheren in her letter last week makes a robust defence of the part played by Buckinghamshire3 County Council in the public inquiry on the M40 Junction 2 motorway service area (MSA) recently approved by the Government.

But does that defence stand up to scrutiny?

I was a spokesperson for a pro green belt lobby group to the inquiry and along with several other interested third parties attended a number of the pre-inquiry and full inquiry sessions over a period of many months.

We often remarked on and worried about the absence of a distinct county council presence.

Cllr Letheren's defence rests crucially partly on her point that the council paid some of the costs of the consultants retained to act on behalf of the two councils, and hence on their competence and effectiveness in carrying out their brief.

Her transport manager recently told a public meeting that these same consultants had got their sums so badly wrong when producing the Beaconsfield Transportation Study (which cost county charge payers £150,000) that the recommendations in it had had to be rejected.

It also rests on the competence of council transportation officials in briefing the consultants, monitoring their presentations to the inquiry and making sure they were doing a good job.

These officials are currently being asked to respond to a complaint made to the Local Government Ombudsman for alleged maladmininistration over the advice they have been tendering for years on planning applications.

Similar advice just submitted to the SBDC reveals that they do not even know what buses serve a particular application site and when.

I have asked Cllr Letheren to provide, under Freedom of Information Act procedures, the documentation which either proves her case that the council's hands-off policy approach to serving the interests of the local community over the MSA affair was reasonable and worked or shows that there should be an inquiry into whether public funds were wasted.

I await a response.

A F Blake-Pauley, Beaconsfield