SIR – I read your article We re being given a rough ride (WHT, March 12) with some confusion. For 19 years we have lived in Bushey Ley, 15 metres away from the offending park and are somewhat nearer to the goings on within it than the Beauchamps residen

SIR - I read your article "We're being given a rough ride" (WHT, March 12) with some confusion.

For 19 years we have lived in Bushey Ley, 15 metres away from the offending park and are somewhat nearer to the goings on within it than the Beauchamps residents you spoke to.

You state that "The park was established at the same time as the houses in the estate off Black Fan Road, which was completed four years ago".

This is incorrect as some of my neighbours remember their children playing on play equipment in the open space when they were younger and that was shortly after our houses were built in the 1950s.

The new equipment was placed on the completion of the Beauchamps homes, having been paid for by the developer who had to remove the old equipment to lay drainage for the new estate.

I am also sure they would have boasted to any prospective buyers that they were installing a park, within easy reach of the new homes, so why the surprise of the residents that it would be a focus point for children and young people throughout the day?

The park was actually phase one of a scheme that was initially meant to have been completed two years ago, but thanks to Beauchamps residents developers' money for this second phase has been spent elsewhere.

The second phase was meant to include equipment for older children and was hopefully to be situated further away from houses. I had suggested including a teenager shelter to be equidistant from all housing, like there is in other locations throughout the borough.

Equipment in the park is intended for the under-10s and it was felt that this was best left where the bulk of the original equipment was, and out of sight of the main road for safety grounds.

I am not saying that young people don't congregate there and that horseplay doesn't take place, but with nowhere else to go what can we expect?

Being closer to the park than Beauchamps the story doesn't relate to our understanding of the goings on.

As for the Beauchamps resident saying: "The council is too ignorant to help us," we all have to understand that they have to think of the many, not just the few.

Indeed I attended the council meeting a couple of years ago to be the voice of the silent majority (the children that use the park), and at this meeting I was gobsmacked at the highly rude behaviour of some residents who weren't prepared to hear the points of views of other residents, and constantly talked down the chair and other committee members.

I had sent a newsletter around the area a few years ago in reply to a petition by Beauchamps residents with an open invitation to talk to us, but when this was mentioned at the council meeting it was made clear by those Beauchamps residents attending that they had no intention of listening to anyone else's point of view.

Your article shows this hasn't changed.

Richard Sullivan, Bushey Ley, WGC.