Dear editor , Thursday’s edition of the Mercury (December 10) flagged up that Pembrokeshire County Council’s leader, Councillor John Davies, was to be quizzed over the commissioning of a £67,000 consultant’s report on the controversial car parking charges.

This followed Cllr Davies’ highly publicised criticism of former county councillor Joyce Watson (now an AM) when he accused her of failing to challenge the decision when she had the chance.

He claimed that while on the council, she did nothing to get the decision to employ consultants “called in” – a tortuous process that provides a brief window of opportunity for back-bench councillors to challenge an all-powerful cabinet decision.

This led to your sister paper the Western Telegraph suggesting that indeed the leader had a point, that Mrs Watson may have missed the boat (to question the decision).

During Thursday’s council meeting, Cllr Davies was forced to concede that there had been no specific cabinet decision to get private consultants to carry out a review, only that councillors could have made a “reasonable assumption” that this would be the case. No cabinet decision to use consultants – no decision for Mrs Watson to “call in”.

If he has not already done so, will he now apologise to Mrs Watson for wrongly maligning her, and to the Western Telegraph for misleading them?

Mike and Vivien Stoddart County Councillors for Hakin and Hubberston, Court Farm, Liddeston, Milford Haven.