I WAS surprised and disappointed to read your report about Longborough parking in last week's edition of the Cotswold Journal.

You refer to my being criticised "for carrying out (my) own petition over the yellow lines and car park, which members felt had undermined their own official survey of residents' view". This is not correct.

It is true that I received two petitions objecting to the double yellow line proposals and I had been led to expect that a third would have been prepared and passed to me for onward transmission to the county council.

In the event I combined the two petitions which I did receive and presented them at the last meeting of the full county council.

I think it is important that the residents of Longborough should recognise that I certainly did not organise either of the petitions and certainly did not append my own signature to either of them.

I hope that I made it clear to the parish council that I was seeking to maintain a personally neutral view of what turned out to be an unnecessarily contentious issue.

Another significant fact which appears to have been ignored by the parish council is that on being lobbied by several people, (some actually parish councillors), in favour of the double yellow line scheme I intimated that I knew that petitions were being prepared to oppose them, and had those in favour been prepared to orchestrate their own petition I offered to present that on their behalf at the same time.

In the event there was no such petition.

BARRY S DARE, county councillor, Old Mill Dene, Blockley, Moreton.