I WRITE concerning your article last week,Villagers celebrate as last orders cancelled.

As you will probably be aware, Mr and Mrs Lyndon Booth have chosen to spend semi-retirement in the delightful village of Minety, where they purchased the White Horse Inn at the end of June this year.

They immediately closed the property and applied for planning permission for change of use to a single dwelling. As their chartered accountant please let me assure your readers that this purchase and subsequent closure was excuted after many months of careful appraisal of exisiting trade and past performance.

Mr. Booth in fact first received particulars of the said public house in 1998. He is a very shrewd businessman who has been very successful in the hotel and public house trade over forty years.

He still owns very successful pubs in other parts of the country. Had the White Horse Inn, in his opinion shown that it was capable of returning a reasonable profit, then the pub would still be trading.

As it is, trading at the White Horse resulted in the last owners returning a loss over £40,000 in just twelve months.

The previous owners made a loss of over £250,000 over a twelve year period. I trust that you will therefore understand the decision for the planning application.

Mr Booth is still hopeful of eventually making his home at the White Horse. However, if there is a villager among the protesters who has the bottle and the funds to take on this loss making concern, then they are invited to write to Mr. Booth at Baytree Court, Tetbury.

If not, then please allow Mr and Mrs Booth to live quietly in your community. You will then soon learn that they are very nice people to have around.

JASON CASE

Richmond,

Surrey