IN A typically predictable response to my letter about my concerns about "Hoylake Village Life" all that J Ridley can do is attack me rather than answer the points I raised.

No prizes for guessing that he/she is represented on this otherwise mostly anonymous group.

But, to add to the murky picture, there was a meeting called to supposedly discuss with a representative cross-section of Hoylake the strategy for "improving" Hoylake.

The meeting was called at short notice with little or no publicity and had it not been for a small notice in the Globe, I doubt very much if any residents would have attended.

Predictably, the meeting turned into a love-in by a number of traders along Market Street; all of whom, without exception, want to increase the number of people shopping in their premises whatever the consequences for those of us who live in the town.

Some of the ideas to be pursued are a weekly market, and a statue of a naked woman on the foreshore and other events to rival the annual Lifeboat Day.

Again an increase in the number of bars and no limitation on licensing hours was mooted.

It's not tumbleweed I foresee for Hoylake if these people get their way but the turning of it into a pathetic little circus.

I think this is what is meant by pushing matters down to the local community otherwise known as the "Big Society": we relinquish the ability to vote them out.

J Irwin by email.