If a camel is a horse designed by a committee Weymouth is a town designed by a confederacy of dunces.

I visited the town this Christmas and found it boarded up like it was hurricane season in some ramshackle, benighted banana republic.

OK, so retail in the high street is suffering chronic Internetitis, everyone knows that, but the only reason to visit Weymouth town now is to get a tattoo, a manicure, to place a bet, or drink copious cappuccinos.

So Cllr Cant thinks he has 'done more for the town in the last four years than the previous 20' (A Pivotal Year, Echo, January 1).

For my sins I have just read the Town Centre 'Masterplan', a fantasy wishlist, proposed, coincidentally, 3½ years ago in June 2015.

The masterplan talks grandly of 'transport strategies', 'boulevards', 'cultural facilities', 'pedestrian circuits' etc etc. Perhaps backers of this hogwash even deluded people by putting some of this guff on the side of a bus.

What's happened since?

Some dismal looking, jerry-built flats have been thrown up along Westway Road; the rotting carcass of the council offices – screaming out to be converted into a hotel – perfectly symbolise council procrastination; and plans for the 'peninsula development'? ...well, don't get me started.

Weymouth doesn't do four-year masterplans – it does bitty, piecemeal week-by-week make-do-and-mend plans.

By defensively denying 'self-interest' Cllr Cant must be aware of the widespread chatter that him and his ilk are only 'in it for themselves'.

I cast no such slur.

I feel sure that Councillor Cant's heart is in the right place and that right now he is cogitating over magnificent boulevards, not-for-profit cultural centres, efficient smoothly operating transport hubs and Westway Boulevard veritably awash with milk and honey.

STEVE WHITE

Hollywoodlaan 148, Almere

The Netherlands