INDEPENDENT councillor Jamie Hodgkinson has once again requested on behalf of the Atherton Business Partnership and the Atherton Residents Association that the council allow them to erect a heritage sign welcoming people to the town centre which incorporates the Atherton crest.

This issue has been the subject of debate for many years with various Labour councillors indicating that they’d try to resolve the problem.

Well, Lord Peter Smith has done it for them, and refused to allow us to have a sign with the Atherton crest.

However this ruling seemingly doesn’t apply to Labour councillors and their supporters, who have erected a sign on the land to the front of St Philip’s CE Primary School on Bolton Road which states that it’s the Bluebell Boundary and incorporates the Atherton crest.

Lord Smith complained that the call in by the Rt Hon Greg Clark, secretary of state for communities and local government, to look at the controversial decision to allow the Formby Hall to be flattened was politically motivated.

Sorry Lord Smith, this is democracy in action, unlike the decision to refuse to let us have the Atherton crest on our sign, which was anything but democratic.

Norman Bradbury, Atherton Business Partnership secretary