I SEE here in Cinderford we continue to attract criticism from a number of people with regard to the development of the last piece of former industrial land at Steam Mills known as the North Quarter.

Just a few points to remember:?We are going to give back some three times the amount of land that we will obtain from the Forestry Commission, and we have carried out the biggest survey of wildlife that has ever been carried out in the Cinderford valley with the view of finding this wildlife new and adjacent habitat.

In addition bat roosts have been built, equipped with heating, and more will be built; the road itself will have underpass tunnels and over-fly structures for bats. Wildlife experts are looking for areas nearby for reptiles.

How many other developments have ever gone to this trouble locally?

Yet still people like Mr Simon Glover complain. The thing is, Simon, people have to live and work. Your interests are only wildlife. Some of us have to think about how we are going to cater for our young people as well. This is where a balance has to come in.

I fully understand why the wildlife is in Cinderford. We have employed experts to tell us. If you think not enough is being done to cater for the wildlife perhaps you can advise us here in Cinderford from your Blakeney home on just what else we can do?

You also mention ,600 members of the Forest of Dean Angling Club who by the way, will still be fishing at Steam Mills renting from the Forestry Commission after North Quarter. You mention 1,000 members of Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust. Well what about the 18,000 in Cinderford and surrounding areas whose children need work?

We have our so-called Forest Champion, Cllr Andrew Gardiner, shouting about shafts, bell pits and a report compiled by Mr Paul Morgan.

Bell pits Andrew? Steam Mills opencast was 200ft deep.

I would have thought a Forest Champion should also be worrying about young Foresters getting employment; about an accident waiting to happen at Steam Mills School. People in Steam Mills badly need a by-pass.

Yes Andrew, I would love to see a reinstated Brain's Horse Drawn Tramway, and a railway running into Cinderford. I would love to see the headgear still at Northern, the Engine House still there, I would give no end to see Lightmoor Engine House restored, but I am not foolish enough to ever think this is going to happen or, indeed, ever be funded.

With regard to mining maps, yes I have many of them. I also have F M Trotter's Geology of the Forest, and, just in case Mr Frank Turley, of Broadwell, is still worried, a family tree of six generations of Forest miners starting with William Morgan of Newland, also a grandfather, Sam Morgan, who worked in 39 different collieries in the Forest, Yorkshire, and South Wales.

My father, Merlin Morgan, was a hod boy at the New Fancy Colliery.

In grandfather's words he was a coal hewer paid to get coal by the ton at the coalface, not go around poking a stick up in the roof. My father, Merlin Morgan, worked on the Buckshaft project for the North West Gloucester Water Board. Pumps were placed down Buckshaft Iron Mine to pump drinking water to supply Cinderford.

In Buckshaft, pumping had to be tailed back because the level of the water in the Big Well at Clearwell dropped. In addition to this the level of water at Lydbrook Valley Springs. Colour dyes that were put in at Buckshaft came out at Clearwell, miles of workings were drained at Wigpool Iron Mine.

Thus my comments to Paul Morgan: If the water table does drop, the Forest will have a lot more to worry about that Steam Mills North Quarter.

I am not foolish enough, Andrew, to ever think that there will be no opposition to Steam Mills North Quarter, I just wish people would get their facts right. I want this opposition to know one thing loud and clear: here in Cinderford we will never give up the quest to get our town back in the position it once was, "the premier town in the Forest".

– Cllr Graham Morgan, Cinderford.