Carol Krebs deserves some response to her challenging letter last week on developments along the canal, particularly Lower Wharf.

I doubt that there are many people in Devizes who dispute her feelings concerning the Assize Courts.

I, and my council colleagues, over ten years during our tenure in Kennet District Council, at County Hall and, lately, in Devizes Town Hall, have challenged the situation which allows the building to decay while it lies in the ownership of a Middle Eastern investor who seeks to shelter money in a safe haven.

The tragedy lies in the original decision, taken some 20 or more years ago, to sell the courts on the open market without any agreed plan for their development. The contribution by the current owner and his agent to repairing the premises has, meanwhile, been so absent that, I suspect, any ambitions regarding consultation by the canoe club would be wasted.

The site of Anstie Court, formerly the gas works, had been for sale on the open market for a number of years, but potential buyers were put off by the requirement to decontaminate the land there.

McCarthy and Stone were the only investors willing to undertake this work. The decisions surrounding this long preceded the opportunity for the canoe club to take on the premises at Lower Wharf.

In regard to the disposal of the council’s premises on Lower Wharf, the community asset transfer is part of a significant programme being undertaken by Wiltshire Council to transfer out of its ownership premises that are redundant, inappropriate to the council’s current ways of working and too costly for them to be retained.

The canoe club is highly regarded by many in the community. That the canoe club’s consultation process appears to have been less complete than desirable is to be regretted. However, there has been ample opportunity for members of the community to make their feelings known.

I know that Coun Mrs Evans, the North Ward divisional member, and myself have been active in attempting to represent fairly both the processes to be followed and the entitlement of the respective parties to be heard, understood and catered for.

It may come as small comfort to know that I have received an assurance from the canoe club’s chairman, Mr Boucher, that he and the club will not be entertaining regional or national events using the premises. Further, he has been asked to review the transport plan for the site.

It has been the community’s long-held wish, albeit associated with a suitable redevelopment of the Assize Court, that access to the Lower Wharf from the Main Wharf be opened up for pedestrians.

This ambition is embraced within the Wharf development brief which, it is hoped, will be shortly adopted within Wiltshire Council’s Core Strategy.

Coun Nigel Carter, Devizes North, Devizes Town Council.