In the Gazette article (“£10k leaflets criticised as ‘propaganda’”, Page 5, September 3) I was surprised to read about a comment by a “council spokesman” that their recent Local Plan leaflets are not propaganda.

I offer a definition of the word propaganda: “Information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote a political cause or point of view.”

The front page of this leaflet showing a well-clad, photogenic, young, white couple holding keys aloft is without a shadow of a doubt biased, maybe even mildly offensive, but at least patronising.

It was designed either by a person with little regard or understanding of the modern concept of diversity or by the marketing department of a major housing developer.

Image-making of this kind has no place in what is offered up later in the leaflet as a “technical consultation”.

Next up in the leaflet is “Why Garden Communities?” with no mention of alternatives to this concept.

That is an absolute bias and also worse, a predetermination of the outcome of an ongoing statutory public examination, where this notion of three huge new towns was found unsound.

The leaflet also uses the misleading terminology that the inspector asked the council to provide more evidence and it is this additional evidence that is listed at the end of the leaflet.

I can see nothing in this leaflet giving even the slightest hint that people are now being asked to comment on whether they think this “additional evidence” is sufficient to prove that the original shortcomings have been resolved.

How could they be expected to do that “objectively” when the original shortcomings are not mentioned in the same context or with the same weighting as the highly-evocative initial pages of the same presentation.

So the leaflet is clearly biased and misleading and the word propaganda seems to me to be a perfect fit.

Will the council apologise for this disgraceful use of public funds or at least stand up and listen to public opinion for a change?

Neil Gilbranch

Copford