SIR — I should like to comment on Mr Nethercott's letter of August 2.
I respect Mr Nethercott. He is one of the old West Somerset families and is fiercely protective of the district and its past — almost a guardian spirit. He deserves to be listened to.
However, I do think he favours the return to a sort of timeless changeless, sylvan West Somerset. A golden age, that in reality perhaps never was.
I know the sun always seemed to be shining when I was young. However, a West Somerset that is frozen in time serves nobody, particularly our children.
Our young people have been ill served by those who attempt to block every attempt at a major commercial development, believing they do not somehow chime with the area. The price they have paid is in low wages and unemployment.
The number of A level and degree students who are able to find appropriate work here following qualification is almost zero. That should be our major source of concern!
Perhaps we would not need to be nearly so worried about locals being excluded from the housing market if some of them were able to obtain decent jobs and salaries in an area where development is often blocked by those who in reality want no change at all; let alone have certain councillors giving every impression of a willingness to dismantle the jobs they do have.
Who speaks for young people on the council?
And so to Butlins. Those who will the closure of Butlins are also willing the sacrifice of hundreds of jobs on which local families depend and would so injure the local economy that we might never recover; unless of course we had already developed a vibrant growing commercial sector offering major employment opportunities.
The point of Butlins for us a community is not that it does not provide a social club for Minehead residents or even that some find it aesthetically displeasing but that like it or not — and I do like it — it provides hugely to the local economy.
Much of Butlins is now self-catering. Ask anyone employed at Tescos and other stores. Their wages are in turn spent within the local economy on say, food, housing, clothing, DIY, leisure and many other things.
One last word. Perhaps one day the idea of a deep-water pier of jetty for Minehead will once again be considered. Do expect the same howls of protest from the usual suspects. Yet the opportunities for fresh jobs that the ferry would bring in its wake could be profound.
There will always be a price to pay for further development but out young people have every right to expect us to pay it. Minehead is not a retirement village.
Ian Galloway,
Glenmore Road,
Minehead.