You are wrong to characterise next Saturday afternoon's event at Titnore Lane, Worthing, as a "secret" protest (The Argus, October 21).

Our community newsletter, The Porkbolter, was informed about the date, as, presumably, were the various web sites on which it is also mentioned.

Whether or not people feel the need to negotiate in advance with Sussex Police on such occasions is surely a different and more complex issue.

For a start, there is an important principle at stake here, recognised across the political spectrum.

Nick Herbert, the Conservative MP for Arundel and South Downs, wrote this week that the new law against protesting outside Parliament was "a sad day for liberty".

He added: "Having to obtain police permission to demonstrate is a fundamental breach of the historic British right to peaceful, free expression and protest." We would certainly agree with that.

On a more practical level, many protesters in the past have discovered the reality of police "co-operation" involves stringent conditions on numbers, location or timing, as well as insistence on the provision of stewards and even the demand organisers pay for expensive public liability insurance - none of which is exactly in the spirit of free speech.

There are also the specifics of the Titnore campaign, on which we have been reporting for several years.

Your same article mentions arrests at previous protests. The only arrests, as far as we are aware, occurred in May 2002, amid highly controversial circumstances.

Let's just say two people subsequently had their cautions wiped from police records and a woman's court case was suddenly terminated by the Crown Prosecution Service on November 11, 2002, when her defence produced surprise video evidence of what actually happened.

(A useful summary of the history of the Titnore campaign can be found at www.southcoast.indymedia.org.uk)

Finally, your report does not mention the irony that Saturday's event is being billed as a "vigil for the death of democracy".

The vigil reflects the feeling in Durrington that Worthing Borough Council has trampled on public opinion by pushing through this unpopular scheme, which will destroy ancient woodland and badly-needed green space.

For those members of the public to now to be treated as little more than criminals for having the cheek to express their views - without first gaining "permission" from the authorities - adds insult to injury and is a sorry indictment of the UK.

-Dave Phillips The Porkbolter, www.eco-action.org