AS the former chairman of Fawley Parish Council, I read with interest and bemusement the article and Councillor Dunsdon's comments (August 15)regarding the alleged over-ambitious plans of the last Conservative Parish Council in Fawley.

I believe some clarification is called for.

Gang Warily has never run at a profit.

The figures taken from the audited accounts show that the deficit between leisure expenditure and leisure income left by the Conservatives in 2007 was £193,844.

The same deficit when Cllr Dunsdon left the council in 2003, having been chairman of policy and resources, was £328,293.

The suggestion that the Conservatives failed to be financially responsible is shown to be false by the Audit Commission's report which stated "Value for Money Conclusion ... our assessment of the council's arrangements to secure economy, efficiency and effectiveness in the use of its resources has been completed and we have issued an unqualified value for money conclusion for 2005/06 on March 29, 2007."

Cllr Dunsdon also ignores the fact that before the Conservatives took over in 2003, the true costs of running not just Gang Warily but all the parish's services were concealed under inappropriate headings making accurate assessments of income and expenditure impossible.

It was left to the Conservatives to sort this out.

It is also difficult to work out how many more decades it will be before the Lib Dems stop blaming the introduction of the non-domestic rates in 1988 for the ills of the council.

The Conservatives have had to deal with the situation as it is in 2007 and were prudent enough to look to the future.

It's sad that the Lib Dems continue to live in the past. As part of the Conservatives' forward looking plans, a considerable amount of well researched work as well as a degree of boldness went into the modernisation plans for the new Fitness Suite. Users and taxpayers alike would all have benefited. Now everyone will be a loser. (Except perhaps Cllr Dunsdon's pet project, football!) It is very difficult to understand why the Lib Dem councillors on Fawley Parish Council prefer not to listen to the financial advice of the parish clerk nor understand the income projections of the centre manager, but I'm not surprised!

COUNCILLOR ALEXIS McEVOY, Fawley Parish Council.