REGARDING the new skate park in St John s Road, Ely. I am sick to death of reading negative letters from the same members of the so-called friends of St John s playing fields, and its mouthpiece (only member, perhaps?) Art Kelleway. This self-appointed

REGARDING the new skate park in St John's Road, Ely.

I am sick to death of reading negative letters from the same members of the so-called "friends" of St John's playing fields, and its mouthpiece (only member, perhaps?) Art Kelleway.

This self-appointed group has no interest in the young. Were you ever young once Mr Kelleway?

I passed by the site the other day, as I live nearby. All the council has done is to take a small part of a playing field and create a fantastic little, self-contained sports section. The rest of the playing field is intact and still has its old goal posts - only now it is a more manageable size for football matches.

Let us also nail the ice, once and for all, that we are "losing" a small bit of green space. East Cambs has secured a green space by developing it as a leisure facility. We should be applauding East Cambs from the rafters- not carping at them from the sidelines with snide and bigoted remarks.

But as usual, a highly-vocal minority trumpets its claims over an acquiescent majority. A few whinging killjoys have acquired the Mickey-Mouse title, "The friends of St Johns playing fields" in the same way you or I might call ourselves, the Coveney Taliban or the Wheatsheaf Close Freedom Fighters.

This anti-skate park cabal are the kind of whiners who would shout at kids in the street to stop playing football, in case it knocked a few hundred quid off their property values!

They never even properly petitioned residents' views - and anyway would you honestly trust a petition from such people when the questions may be heavily loaded?

Instead, they base their support on the claim they invited some people to air their grievances. What kind of representative sample is that? Were these contributors presented with some kind of Doomsday scenario-and then egged on to let off steam?

Normal folk have neither the time nor the inclination to rebuff a group of people (or even a one-man hobby-horse!) whose minds are already made-up.

If youth organisations such as the City of Ely Youth Group have backed the project-then that's good enough for me!

I don't trust the "seemingly articulate" who bombarded the media/councils with weekly letter-writing campaigns, claiming to speak "for everybody".

I can't wait for my grand-children to have this resource. I hope it's ready in line for the summer holidays. And then Ely's west-side will, truly, be the toast off all Ely!

CAROLYN ROBB