STEVE Lewis from Radio Warrington seems to miss the point of my letter concerning Cllr Mike Hannon and his association with the radio station.

The council’s code of conduct and meeting procedure rules are quite clear.

Both pecuniary and nonpecuniary interests in a matter under discussion must be declared to a meeting.

The requirement to declare an interest is there for a reason. It’s important that all councillors are able to form views in the full knowledge of all relevant facts.

In his extremely scathing and vehement speech against the quite unremarkable motion about asking the BBC to complete its network with a BBC Radio Cheshire station Cllr Hannon’s principle objection was that a BBC Radio Cheshire would compromise Radio Warrington.

That may or not be the case, but had the meeting been made aware of his connection with Radio Warrington it’s arguable that the vote might have been different.

The fact that Cllr Hannon is both a director and chairman of the trustees of Radio Warrington was certainly relevant to this motion and his interest should have been declared.

Unlike Steve Lewis, I was at the meeting where the motion was tabled and the fact of Cllr Hannon’s non pecuniary interest was not declared and recorded in the minutes.

It was therefore inappropriate for Cllr Hannon to speak and vote against the motion without declaring this interest.

Whether most councillors at the meeting would know that Radio Warrington is a not-for-profit company, as claimed by Mr Lewis, is irrelevant – as is Mr Lewis’s view that Radio Cheshire is a ‘nonstarter’.

It’s councillors who decide on these matters not Mr Lewis.

Since I raised this matter with the council the standards committee has been asked by the monitoring officer to consider the desirability of including more detailed guidance on non-pecuniary interests in the code of conduct, so clearly this subject is thought worthy of attention by others.

RICHARD BUTTREY Stockton Heath