REFERENCE Fred Bradley's letter, "Land appeal decisions are being breached", June 25. He refers to Powerprep as a company, "whose business activities included the chemical cleaning of huge containers by power blasting".

This was utter claptrap then and it remains so today. After we were given permission to move our equipment on to the said land, we were spied on and photographed without our permission. Some of our employees were young lads and were upset at being photographed, especially in hot weather.

Before this got out of hand, I went round to the immediate residents and informed them that we would not be carrying out any activities of any description and that we were only storing our equipment on this site. We explained this to them, as did the landlord in the form of the Manager of "Bizspace". We explained that we earn our money on location all round the country by blasting with water only. This explanation was totally ignored by the residents who got up a petition against us and invoked the help of Cllr Cliff Morris who in turn refused to speak to us. Not a fair-minded approach in my view.

We were a young Bolton-based company trying to make our way and were providing employment to some of the people of Bolton. We did not run an operation from this locality; we simply stored our equipment there, just as Pallet Solutions Ltd are now trying to do. After all, this area is an industrial estate which was there long before these houses were built adjacent to it.

Companies providing employment for local people should be supported, not hounded, especially when all they are doing is storing equipment.

And, Mr Bradley, before you ask me if I would live where you live, the answer is no, I wouldn't, but that's because of personal preference. I wouldn't choose to live next to an industrial estate, then complain about companies trying to earn a living.

We were forced to leave, and I only hope that Bolton Council look at the situation with even-handedness.

Martin Henderson, Managing Director, Power Prep Ltd