I WRITE in reply to Alan Titcombe's letter 'Rate-payers need protecting', with which I whole-heartedly agree.

The district councillors recently voted themselves a 58 per cent rise, the county councillors a 12.5 per cent one. Last year the police authority increased its precept by 18 per cent, the county council 12 per cent. These account for the greatest proportion of the community charge met by the people of Westbury.

Mr Titcombe chooses not to attack these people, from whom we all need protection, but Westbury town councillors, who give their services freely, making criticisms of their decision to take over the Laverton. If only his attack had been founded on fact, instead of rumour and his ignorance of the proceedings of the last three years.

I have before me four documents, all used by the council to guide its deliberations. Document one is by King Sturge and Co, a highly reputed firm of surveyors, which carried out a structural survey and which said, "The elevations themselves are generally in good condition requiring minor overhaul and repointing The building is generally in good condition internally and is in a satisfactory decorative order".

A further document before me is from the district council's own surveyor and reveals that £72,200 would be needed to carry out improvement works on the building and update the facilities.

BKR Haines Watts of Westbury, which looked at the financial viability of the hall, carried out the third survey. Its bottom line, using the above reports as its starting point, showed a loss during the first two years but, as costs of modernisation and updating were met, a surplus of £7,000 to £8,000 per year thereafter.

The fourth report is the one presented at the council meeting and is a summary of all of the above. Does it really seem as though the council has acted in ignorance? Does it really sound as though the town council has not done its homework? I leave your readers to decide!

Mr Titcombe is also wrong when he asserts that the vote taken in September was 'perfectly legal'. The legal advice I was given said just the opposite, and that the vote was open to legal challenge, as was the vote taken in June, which he chooses to ignore.

The town council had voted on this subject three times in nine months and that is against standing orders. If he is so keen to ensure legality, why did Mr Titcombe not challenge the June vote?

As to consultation, my breath is taken away! Mr Titcombe knows that on November 1 I and other councillors spent a day consulting the public in the Paragon. The voting was 50/50 to take over the hall. When asked to put a price on keeping the Laverton, the overwhelming vote was 50p per week, the amount he says is too much!

As to the cost of running Westbury Town Council, it has the lowest precept of the five towns in the district.

Yes Mr Titcombe, the ratepayers do need protection as outlined above, but so do councillors, who give their time freely and without charge, from the likes of ill informed, misleading and scurrilous attacks such as yours!

That a person who is employed to put the community first should now seek to so deliberately mislead it absolutely appals me.

H PRICKETT

Mayor of Westbury