SIR – Hatfield town centre has been left to rot. The article relating to Action Hatfield (WHT, June 4) set up by prospective parliamentary candidate Mick Hobday is positive although politically motivated, you could even suggest opportunist. It is the

SIR - Hatfield town centre has been left to rot. The article relating to Action Hatfield (WHT, June 4) set up by prospective parliamentary candidate Mick Hobday is positive although politically motivated, you could even suggest opportunist.

It is the first time to my recollection that any Labour person has actually got on the metaphorical bus. The only thing is, it left the stop a long time ago on the journey to bring the town centre redevelopment to reality. I have a picture of these people running behind the bus saying stop I want to get on, it does pose an amusing sight.

The council members of all parties and officers have worked tirelessly to make it happen. It's very simple, it is going to go ahead as any person that looks at the economics of the scheme can see it is a viable option.

There maybe argument about timing but there are approximately 12,000 workers at the new state-of-the-art office complexes now based at the Hatfield airfield. The university has approximately the same number of students. Add that together with all the new families that have moved into the new housing developments at Hatfield Garden Village. The spending power of that number of people speaks for itself.

The people who have set up this action group know that things are moving in a positive way and they can say, when things happen, 'we did that'.

Bandwagoner springs to mind. All bodies involved in the development are aligned and working to start the construction. We do not need to know what people of Hatfield think about the redevelopment as they clearly want a town centre they can be proud of, as I and my councillor colleagues say on many occasions.

I would suggest that he turns his attention to making sure the QE2 Hospital remains in its present form and gets his party leader to...

* help reduce the tax burden he instigated over the last 11 years so our families have more freedom to spend their money

* change the planing law so we can have control over what gets built.

* give us our business rates revenue back rather than the pathetic revenue support grant we get which is meant to replace it

* support the family unit rather than the nanny state interfering all the time

* put the drinking hours back to stop this alcohol-fuelled violence, giving our police the chance to do what they are meant to do, not dealing with public order

* stop wasting money on sound bite statements and stalled initiatives. Give our armed forces the tools to do the job.

Cllr Nick Atkinson,

Welwyn Hatfield Council