What a tizzy!

WHAT a tizzy poor Mr Betts got into in last week's Observer. He believes our letters to the paper are responsible for a drop in visitor numbers this year. May I suggest that the cause could be the vast building site spewing out orange dust in the wind on the central seafront. Incidentally, I don't think many visitors read our letters when deciding whether to come.

Letter writers inform other residents of what is going on - things that the council would rather we didn’t know.

If it were not for letters and campaigners several years ago we would now have three eight-storey office blocks on the promenade. Would you prefer we had kept that quiet?

It is not we letter writers who despoil the town but the high officials at the town hall. We are not criticising the good things, the playthings or the new rowing club, but certain items like the shelters. Would any one of these unelected officers buy even a shed with an enormous gaping hole in the roof? Not in their own gardens I guess. But they’ve done it to us. Should we keep quiet over this? As for Mr Betts complaining about my own letter concerning the high class evening restaurant proposed for the Colonnade... the thought of coiffured and beautifully dressed ladies teetering up and down those formidable new and huge concrete steps in high heels in a force nine gale sends me into paroxysms of laughter. Besides Alan Haydon, the Pavilion director, told a large audience that even with the DLWP’s stunning views, opening his restaurant “in the evening was not commercially viable.”

Come on Mr Betts, we don’t all want to be ‘yes men’. Our only aim is to make this town as good as it can be. We gain nothing else, unlike the young men in sharp suits who have their own agenda - who take our money and run.

Our letters to the council only elicit stock replies. Our thoughtful and well meaning requests are merely answered with council mantra. Our concerns are not dealt with. Although most council staff are very helpful and kind, in the higher echelons there is much ineptitude and moral cowardice. They will not tell us the real truth. That, Mr Betts, is why we write to the Observer. It is the people’s only voice.

JACKIE BIALESKA

Vox Pop.