Roy White, of Naseby Drive, Heathfield, writes:

on March 22, the MDA published reports that Bovey Tracey Town Council now estimates the cost, presumably of a single storey new build, will be £750,000. At the start of this misguided episode the suggested cost was £500,000 to rebuild the Old Thatch as it was before fire destroyed it.

The claim that a modern single-storey building would cost one and a half times as much as restoring an old cob wall, thatched roof, two storey building rather puts the reliance we may place on these forecasts into perspective.

Presumably, we can pay similar attention to the protestations regarding there being no impact on the amount of council tax paid by us voters. After all, there was a well publicised plan to borrow the money. In an edition of the town council's own newsletter Quality Update early last year we were informed that to pay for the rebuilding of the Old Thatched Inn it had 'agreed to apply for a Public Works Loan Board Annuity Loan of £500,000 at a fixed rate of interest [not specified] to be repaid over 15 years'.

Now the town council is intent on spending at least £750,000 on this ill-advised project. Where will that money come from if not from the pockets of the local tax payers?

I fear the council still has not grasped the reality of the situation: we live in straitened times and austerity stalks the land, because people great and small, sectors public and private, governments central and local spent money in unimaginable quantities that they did not have.

More of the same folly is not the answer.MORE LETTERS IN OUR DIGITAL EDITION