IT was only a matter of time before the allegation that I compromised myself on the Derwenthorpe issue would be recycled in public as fact - perhaps not surprisingly by Coun Fraser (Letters, April 7).

That's why I decided I could not take part in the decision of the planning committee, as I had intended.

Members of Osbaldwick Parish Council knew this but, in purporting to describe my conduct in the parish council's newsletter to residents, after explaining I had not spoken out to be free to be a member of the planning committee taking the decision, the letter went on "yet at the last minute he stepped down from that committee", without any explanation of the reason why I decided I had to step down.

That was, and is, my personal complaint against the newsletter. Yet in reply to my protest about this misleading of residents, the parish council replied that they hadn't said anything untrue - as if there was no such thing as an innuendo.

So I was interested that the chair and vice chair of the parish council should write to you saying my letter to the Press (March 31) implied the council influenced the MP's decision to write to the Audit Commission.

They are all too eager to detect an "implication" when I write, but are not prepared to apologise for one (intended or not) in their own newsletter. The parish councillors in question may not be "professional" politicians - but it seems they don't have much to learn from the likes of Sandy Fraser.

Coun Jonathan Morley,

Hempland Lane, York.

Updated: 10:10 Friday, April 15, 2005