Roy Phillips, of St Joseph's Court, Carlton Place, Teignmouth, writes:

For many years, West Teignmouth has been categorised as a deprived area. Apart from when we built, in the early 80s, the West Teignmouth Comunity Centre and play park – now called the Meadow Centre – little has been done to provide for the leisure and recreational eeds of the residents of this part of Teignmouth.

Now that Teignbridge Council is to gain some £10million from the sale of part of Broadmeadow, why can they not – at the very least – earmark one year's interest on this money to pay for updating the existing community building, then build on a youth centre? We had planned for this in l983 but could not get the necessary initial funding from our town and district councils to enable us to fundraise for this project.

It needs to be remembered that all that the district council gave us was the lease on a steeply-sloping field and a grant of less than £1,000. Teignmouth Town Council came up with £3,000.

All the rest, the major part, was raised principally by financial gifts from Mr and Mrs Harley, then through the committee chaired by Cynthia Holmes and hrough the tireless help of people like Ray Barnes, Tony Holmes, Jean, Ken, Janet and Tom Harley, plus Dolly, Margaret, Julie etc who worked their collective socks off.

With the substantial remainder of the one year's interest left, Teignbridge could build – on the lower part of the community building's grounds – a decent-sized rollerblade, BMX and skate park.

What could be provided through these three related projects are decent recreational facilities for West Teignmouth residents of all ages, sited close to their homes. If a fairly minimal charge was made, that would pay for local help to organise, supervise and manage a very wide range of activities.

West Teignmouth has four town councillors and two district councillors. It would not be unreasonable to expect each to give some of their time weekly to assist and develop the fullest range of activities.

Then, for once, Teignmouth would see some direct return for the selling-off of its previously held local assets.MORE LETTERS ONLINE