I am a councillor in St Thomas's Ward Dudley at the centre of the past Mosque application and write to sincerely congratulate the Police, Council and Dudley residents for their tolerance and patience during the recent EDL protest debacle.

It is absolutely clear that Dudley spoke with one voice on that day. All political parties on the Council signed up to a letter published in the local media condemning the protest by these 'outsiders'.

The Police and Council Officers were superb on the day. The Chief Executive and leader of the Muslim Community stood together on local TV condemning the EDL and the disruption caused on a key weekend of the year to our valued traders and decent honest citizens of our borough.

The issue of the Mosque is very real but we are in a period of calm and believe we can solve this issue locally by peaceful democratic negotiation and do not wish for old wounds to be reopened.

The fact that this far right ragbag of a movement used it as an excuse to come to our town for an anticipated day of disturbance and probably violence stood out like a sore thumb and is an absolute disgrace and a very costly one at that to all taxpayers of this borough and beyond.

I will certainly be looking at ways to strengthen legislation to either get such blatant trouble seeking protests banned or at least make the perpetrators pay the costs!

Is anyone with me on this issue?

Councillor Steve Waltho St Thomas's Ward Dudley MBC