I WOULD like to praise Doris Jones, the ward councillor for Middleton St George and her fellow councillors for drawing up the proposed neighbourhood plan covering the Middleton area.

It is important that those elected councillors are allowed to represent the people in their constituencies by highlighting their fears and concerns to an authority like Darlington Borough Council (DBC) which appears to side with big business to the detriment of local people.

It appears that Durham Tees Valley airport is unhappy at being included within the boundary of the proposed plan, and its parent group, Peel Airports has convinced DBC that it should not be part of the plan.

But Durham Tees Valley is no longer an airport.

Peel has seen to that by driving it into the ground. It is now being used as a housing and property vehicle and for that reason it should come under the parish plan.

Why? Because if Peel builds houses etc on the land it is the parish and the existing service provision in the Middleton area, such as schools etc, that will have to cope with the increased population and traffic etc.

If DBC does not back the parish council then I would strongly urge our two excellent borough councillors, Doris Jones and Steve York, to move a vote of no confidence in the leader of the council Bill Dixon.

They may find they have a number of allies who are equally unhappy about the performance of DBC if one thinks about the unpopular Haughton throughbout, road congestion throughout the town caused by pro-bus/anti-car schemes and the car parking charges that are killing off our town centre.

Mark Anderson, Middleton St George.