Following your front-page article (August 8) about the future leisure facilities and the regeneration of the Teville Gate site in Worthing, please allow us to clarify the Liberal Democrat position on this issue. As the three Liberal Democrat members who have "called in" this decision, we have done so because we are not convinced the current proposals offer value for money for the council tax-payer of Worthing.

This view was borne out by Worthing Borough Council's own paid consultants, who specialise in advising local authorities on building municipal swimming pools.

We signed the "call-in" on July 16 with specific instructions not to stall negotiations with the owners of Teville Gate. We just want evidence that the leasing scheme being proposed for the council-run pool means best value for taxpayers.

As yet there is no planning application or commitments from the developers - just vague promises. Before we can support any such scheme, we need to know what assets the people of Worthing will be losing to balance against any possible gain.

The delay of the "call-in" hearing is down to the Conservative committee chairman, who scheduled the meeting for September 20.

We agree this is a significant delay and would have preferred to have the meeting at the end of July or beginning of August when we could have called the consultants to give evidence.

Councillors Bob Smytherman, James Doyle and Mary Freeland

-Worthing Liberal Democrats