I was surprised by that.

My complaint was not a general one but quite specific.

I had said: "There is no doubt that the town council could do a great deal to promote tourism through its website – and it needs to!"

I stand by that remark.

I searched the entire website and found just one page that includes the word "tourism".

True, there are 18 downloadable documents, such as the council's agendas, minutes, and newsletters, that include the term, but ordinary folk thinking of visiting the area won't go looking at them... I did!

I found one that listed the appointments, in 2007, to "Other community groups not associated with council committees".

The entry for Swaffham & District Tourism Association had no name listed against it.

Then again in the minutes of the full council, May 2008, item "1328 Nominations for representatives on outside bodies" records that two members were needed for the association, yet no nominations were put forward.

NOMINATIONS

To be fair, of the 18 bodies listed, four others also failed to get any nominations.

So I am a little confused about why Mr Hickey thinks I am misleading residents about the town council's commitment to tourism.

Perhaps he is right when he says that I betray "a remarkable ignorance about the promotion of tourism to this area."

On the other hand, some would say that the council's decision, in November last year, to produce a "strategic tourism policy" and action plan was a decision taken a bit late in the day.

On the bright side, there's no denying that the association's website does a good job.

When I entered "Swaffham" in Google it's the association's site that came out on top, ahead of some 600,000 others.

And it's good to read that it is now distributing 40,000 visitor guides. That's up from 25,000 copies in the first part of 2005, according to council minutes.

Interestingly, the minutes continued, "The website (of the association) is becoming increasingly important as more and more use the Internet to decide holidays and venues".

Might that have been the point to consider long-term strategic policy?