Martin McGowan-Scanlon, of Bay View Estate, Stoke Fleming, writes:

It amuses and appalls me in equal parts to read about the antics of the Business Improvement District, the Tourist Information Centre, the Business Forum, the Town Council and worst of all the Dartmouth Trust, currently operating its own policy of Rachmann-like rent  increases while blaming it on ‘the rules’.

Did I miss any other body out?  

Appalled, because they are filled with all the same old names, mainly talking nonsense and unable to come up with a coherent plan for a town which has seen visitor numbers, according to reports, fall by more than anywhere else in the vicinity.

Does that not proclaim failure despite the best efforts of various of these talking heads to put a positive spin on it?.

Face it, numbers are down more than elsewhere and you have wasted a lot of other people’s money failing to stem that particular ebb tide.  

Amused, because I see a proposal for a working party, to be made up of representatives of three of these deeply flawed organisations, to work on tourism. They are already working parties, are they not, and they are clearly not working!. Can they not grasp that?

How will another talking shop help when none of the current failures can even get their own houses in order?

When I recently stood for the council, I noticed a number of things.

One was the disgusting way a number of members spoke of their own constituents and had to be scolded by other members. Two, how those who seemed able to quote the regulations chapter and verse seemed to hold sway. Three, finally and most appallingly, how one councillor abstained on every single vote as if this was a brilliant leading  statement of some kind.

Sour grapes if you will,  but I am beyond caring.

No wonder they don’t want me anywhere near their talking shops; they may be forced to feel they need  to make decisions and work together.

As Oliver Cromwell said ‘No-one rises so high as he who knows not whither he is going’. I would now beseech those who make up these pitiful and failing organisations who are contributing to the destruction of Dartmouth to take note of another Cromwell quote. ‘You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!’