DO not think for a moment the absence of ‘supermarket-gate’ in our news pages indicates any form of resolution.

What the past week has been about is allowing the respective parties time to re-group and disseminate the proposal from Fenland District Council to re-run all three applications for Whittlesey in January. It would mean tearing up all the work to date, and revoking the permissions previously issued.

In other words Fenland District Council would want us to subscribe to what might best be termed as the ‘Bobby Ewing School of Planning’; to accept the past few months have all been a dream and we go back to where we started.

The problem is that it simply won’t wash.

Council leader Alan Melton told the world he had either stood down or suspended his entire planning committee - which is simply not true. Most of the same councillors who got us into ‘supermarket-gate’ are being considered to get us out of it.

Then there is the matter of Sainsbury’s whose anger at being denied meetings with senior officials at Fenland District Council to discuss the issue is tempting them to head for the courts.

Cabinet member Jan French has yet to have a forum to defend her claims of being unjustifiably sacked whilst colleague Pop Jolley is ducking and diving to avoid having to tell what he knows.

It’s a mess.