When I picked up the December 23 issue of the Gazette, I had to check that I hadn't bought one dated April 1 which had got stuck in the pile.

So all the public conveniences in Kennet are to close, to be replaced by one rather small one that you have to pay for in Devizes, and another in Marlborough?

I must confess to being an enthusiast for many things European, but there is one area in which this country has a clear lead over its neighbours, and that is public loos.

The conveniences of Kennet are mostly clean, cheerful and as vandal-proof as possible, and I have had occasion to find many of them convenient. However, if you were caught short in Ludgershall, but had to make a mad dash to Marlborough, that certainly wouldn't count as convenient.

I am surprised to hear that a free facility requires a certain number of users to be viable I would have thought the less wear and tear the better. In the case of Devizes, we are only 100 visitors short of the target, so I will make a point of using them more often if that will help.

Has it occurred to our councillors that the kind of people who might vandalise their loos are unlikely to want to pay whatever the exalted charge is (and many others will not have the right change), so there will be a sharp rise in the use of nearby walls for insalubrious purposes? It is rather distasteful to see a certain group of people being very generous to themselves in return for removing facilities from the rest of us. Maybe we will show a similar lack of generosity towards them at the next election.

J Selwyn

Devizes