Today your leading story claimed that Weymouth and Portland district councillors were unhappy with their assets being retained by the new unitary authority for their benefit.

I would argue that it would be totally irresponsible for the new unitary authority to allow any valuable asset to be passed on to a new parish council that would probably not have the infrastructure to maintain the assets concerned.

As it is the current Weymouth & Portland Borough Council appear not to be maintaining their assets as well as they could be.

I had occasion to use the gents’ WC next to the Duke of Cornwall in St Edmund Street, which, not living in Weymouth, I had visited some time ago in late summer and found that the missing and only urinal in the WC had still not been replaced.

This is at least two months after I noticed that it had been removed (probably due to vandalism) and is not good enough for any town let alone one claiming to be a holiday resort.

Letting the dilapidated hotels on the seafront pass to a larger unitary authority could be their salvation as they appear to be as neglected as the town’s WC facilities.

This is probably due to lack of expertise in management at Weymouth & Portland Borough.

The “old” council offices, built and closed by the same authority in my lifetime, are another example of poor maintenance, as is the situation with the harbour and lack of a cross channel ferry.

This also applies to the former council run Weymouth Pavilion which was handed to its current management in a very poor state.

ROBERT AVANT

Kingsbere Crescent,

Dorchester