Ruislip High School's director of community and partnership learning wrote recently to local residents, endorsing the Shenley Park shelter and giving the names, email address and telephone numbers of two local Conservative councillors who support it.

There was no mention of the third councillor, Mike Cox, from the Liberal Democrats.

I understand that Mr Cox was given no opportunity by Ruislip High School to discuss this project with the school.

I thought that a key principle of local government is that each council-lor in a ward is treated equally by the council and its associated organisations, such as council funded schools. It seems to me that the school has breached this principle.

The school gave one week's notice to residents of a meeting, held at 4.30pm on a Thursday afternoon. Not a convenient time for anyone at work, nor much opportunity to book time off.

Then, at last week's Ruislip Residents' Association meeting, Councillor [Douglas] Mills dismissed objections, saying that the building would probably go ahead anyway and there was no requirement for the council to consult residents on the proposal.

Ruislip High School must have been planning this for some time.

Apparently the Chamber of Commerce and Ruislip Residents' Association were told about it.

But local residents, who will bear the impact of this scheme, were kept in the dark until it was more or less a done deal.

Local democracy? I don't think so.

PETER O'BRIEN,

Shenley Avenue, Ruislip Manor.