A PARISH council has been accused of trying to block a multi-million pound development in Wolsingham.

A resident believes Wolsingham Parish Council is using a church-funded community magazine to stir up ill-feeling against an £8.8m Internet park planned on the outskirts of the village.

Wakefield-based The Rural Workspace and Housing Association wants to transform a 17-acre site at Harperley, near Wolsingham, into a computerised business park which would bring investment and employment opportunities to the area.

But its plans fall outside the area's local plan, and the company has rejected other possible sites.

Wolsingham Parish Council expressed support for the idea of a purpose-built computerised business park, but believes the proposed location is unacceptable.

Now it has run into controversy over two articles which appeared in a free village publication, the Town Crier, delivered in the area.

Anita Atkinson, a Wolsingham School governor and editor of the Weardale Gazette, lives beside the proposed site of the development.

She said: "Weardale is dying. Business is sliding, and even the youngsters are moving out.

"The Internet isn't just the future, it is the present. It is really crazy that a grassroots council can object when there's employment being offered.

"Things keep going in the Town Crier to influence people in the parish. People deserve to hear the other side of the argument."

The council denies there is a hidden agenda behind publishing articles outlining problems with the proposed location.

Council spokesman Councillor Vere Shuttleworth refuted suggestions that the articles were an abuse of a church-funded publication.

He said the authority was planning to part-fund the magazine.

He said: "The Town Crier is in no way or other biased or controversial, unless the person that reads it has another view. These are community pieces in a community paper, which is a mixture of all sorts of things that relate to Weardale.