IN YOUR lead item on the Mogden expansion plans (Chronicle, March 12) you quote me as saying that Hounslow Council officers "knew the truth of the matter" with regard to the option Thames Water has of committing its own funds to covering the storm tanks at the plant and thereby honouring its statutoryobligations to the neighbouring community.

Having watched the webcast of the meeting again, I would concede from their comments that they probably didn't. Which of course begs the question - why were they not properly briefed?

Whose decision was it not to equip them with essential information that members were entitled to expect in order that they might take an informed decision, and what action is it proposed will be taken in response to this omission?

It is a matter of record that Thames Water told the Sustainable Development Committee which made the decision to support this application that permission from OFWAT was required before the storm tanks might be covered. Two officers and a Labour councillor confirmed to the committee that this was indeed the case.

It wasn't. As Thames confirmed to your reporter, the company's refusal to honour its obligations to its neighbours has always been purely a business decision. Yet these are the people who we are now depending upon to respect conditions attached to the approval of their expansion programme, and the senior officers who omitted to equip their own staff with important information are the people we will be depending upon to enforce the conditions if/when they are breached.

As the leader of one of the parties to the coalition, I have to accept a large part of the responsibility for the fact that the residents living in the vicinity of Mogden have continued to endure the same lack of support from their local authority as they had suffered under the previous administration.

However, as ward councillors for Isleworth, my colleagues and I can assure our constituents that we will be making up for lost time in rectifying the matter.

CLLR PHIL ANDREWS Community, Isleworth ward.