AT long last the Labour-dominated Bishop Auckland Town Council has awoken from severe hibernation, belatedly realising what is happening, and what will continue to happen, to the town centre (Echo, Oct 30).

With the number of boarded-up premises rising by the week, our missing-in-action MP, Helen Goodman, displays little inclination to get involved with the troubles of the town centre.

Despite their effrontery, this is the Labour Party playing politics with the future of the town.

Now seemingly shamed into recognising the plight of the town, Labour’s silly game of wishing to blame one man with one vote, Sam Zair, has rightly back-fired.

Councillor Zair has at least been consistent in his approach.

Labour’s henchmen need to inform their members to vote against further development, unless developers at St Helen Auckland provide direct assistance to Bishop Auckland’s town centre in return.

Up and down the nation, there are hundreds of examples of town and county councillors negotiating massive amounts of money from the big supermarkets and retail developers in return for planning consent, to directly mitigate against the effects of such close-by development on town centres.

You can, it seems, be for balanced out-of-town development, but insist that these multi-billion pound companies assist nearby town centres.

New development ought not to mean the slow painful death of the town – councillors need to prioritise money from developers to the town centre for specific purposes.

Jim Tague, Bishop Auckland.