I FEEL obliged to respond to the story on The Dockle Farmhouse. As the spokesperson for Freedom To Choose when I read this story I nearly choked on my beer.

In the short space of time Dockle has been open, it has re-branded from a Lloyds One, the up-market version of Wetherspoons, to a standard Wetherspoons and, I would suspect, that it is probably not fairing as well as the other two Wetherspoons in Swindon, hence the smoking shelter.

As a company it has stopped its smoke-free policy. As a direct consequence of its policy it lost seven per cent of its turnover overall and 14 per cent in its smoke-free pubs.

Freedom To Choose has shown through its efforts that passive smoking is nothing short of a lie.

We have received an apology from none other than the British Heart Foundation for its claims about passive smoking, however, the national press has never published the apology.

We have gained support from the Lords and MPs are coming around to the fact they have been lied to.

I fully expect to be challenged on what I have said, but I repeat to ASH, The DoH and all those other advocates of smoking bans, meet us in open honest live debate, prove to the public passive smoking is harmful.

Passive smoking is an irritant, no more, no less.

R Feal-Martinez .

Freedom To Choose.

South Marston