I'VE been a Labour supporter all my life. The council's £300,000 grant to a private firm of solicitors to 'refurbish' their office building, at the same time as Children's Centres are being closed and school crossing services cut, surely has to be classed as corruption in moral terms at least.

Even more so, when it is done without proper procedure and transparency. Charities throughout the town have to fill in detailed and lengthy forms and justify every penny spent to stand even an outside chance of receiving one of the few paltry grants on offer to them.

Yet the owner of this firm can come away with £300,000. This is no different to the secret deal the Tory government has made with Nissan 'to protect jobs' in Sunderland, and which the Labour Party is rightly demanding be made public. We cannot condemn such actions on the one hand and justify them on the other. It's hard to see any justification at all for Cllr Cliff Morris's decision to spend our money in this way, even more so when he does it behind closed doors and attempts to keep the details secret from press and public. If Labour is to remain in power on Bolton Council it needs to take a long hard look at itself and the way it's running our town.

Neil Duffield

Darcy Lever