Mark Pickford, of Town Hall Place, Bovey Tracey, writes:

I do hope that I am not the only one who is upset, close to the point of disgusted at the 'proposed' £750,000 facelift of Bovey Tracey Town Hall. A whole grand for every year since the charter.

The entire building was on the market for £150,000 not all that long ago.

How on earth, in the current economic climate, does this make any sense at all? Remember, the council do not have any money, they use tax payers money, so it's all fine and dandy to make a pretty little model and have one's picture taken and then list all the wonderful reasons why they want it, but as local council tax payers I think it's time we said no. I can only speak for myself so I am saying no.

I am aware that disabled access is a current requirement by law for public buildings, but that isn't going to cost three-quarters of a million is it? Where do people park to get there? On the road on double yellow lines.

In fact if one was to pick a place for this sort of building one wouldn't pick where it is now. The location is never going to change, thus don't spend a wedge of our cash on it.

The clerk suggests that increased office space could be used to 'get some money back', ok then, let's see some specific numbers on this then. Even at £1,000 per month it would only take 750 months to get the capital back (I am ignoring any interest charge here) that's only 60 odd years.

Thus I can't see that particular argument changing my mind.

We were told years ago that we were having a new town hall in a different location – that all went quiet.

Mind you we were also told we were going to have a new footbridge – but funnily enough that was deemed too expensive or more expensive or who knows what and then that all went quiet too.

So this 'revamp' then; model made, picture taken, public consultation 'meetings' planned. Surely these are the wrong way around? The way that this has been portrayed is that it has already been agreed, I haven't seen any planning applications for any changes as yet – funny that.

I am disagreeing for the above reasons (and more) I sincerely hope I am not alone in this view.

Now don't get me wrong, I am not knocking the town hall, the people that work there or what they do, but the very notion of this 'project' is so wrong in my eyes that we have to stop it. Our council tax went up to pay for the charter celebration (will it go down again after the event? Answers on a postcard please) and the same will happen here unless it's sorted first.

The building has been ok as it is for a fair while now. let's just leave it as it is (the same as should have been done elsewhere in the town for many things) if the councillors and the clerk want to club together and do the building up out of their own pockets then fair enough. I will be very interested to hear other people's view on this whole thing.

On the plus side, at least it will give the Tesco lorry something different to bang into every now and then.

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