I WAS interested to read the comments of the spokesman for South Cambridgeshire District Council in your report about Andrew Fowler s protest (The Crow, July 24) over the election of tenants to the shadow board of the housing association it wishes to set

I WAS interested to read the comments of the spokesman for South Cambridgeshire District Council in your report about Andrew Fowler's protest (The Crow, July 24) over the election of tenants to the shadow board of the housing association it wishes to set up in order to privatise its housing stock.

It seems a strange idea of democracy when the district council decides who it will allow to stand for election and excludes anyone who does not wholeheartedly support privatisation.

Is it democracy to mislead tenants that tenant members of the board will actually be able to represent their interests, when by law they will have to act in the interests of the association?

Is it democracy when the council has no idea of who is eligible to vote in this sham election as demonstrated by the fiasco of the district council sending out ballot forms to more than 600 people who were either no longer tenants or, in some cases, had actually died?

It is now clear that the district council is incapable of conducting this process in a fair and democratic manner and it should stop now before it damages its credibility even further.

JOHN TAYLOR

Cambridge