SIR — With Rank's sale of the Butlins Group and purchase of the Minehead site by a similar leisure group, it just looks like more of the same for the citizens of Minehead and surrounding area. By that I mean more of the bucket and spade brigade.

I think Minehead could do better than that. In fact, much, much better, if only the current Butlins site could be bought by a company which brought real disposable income and real wealth to the town and region.

We are not looking at massive changes here, just a subtle, tasteful transformation from a bucket and spade town to possibly a more academic, artistic or even business orientated town which fits in suitably with the surrounding countryside and the National Park environment.

If you consider the full capacity of Butlins at around 10,000 people, I wonder what would happen to Minehead if those 10,000 people were exchanged for people with 3-4 times the earning capacity and disposable incomes?

The recent announcement that Nomura is pulling out of its investment in The Dome reminded me that Minehead has a dome of its own, well almost! They're both white and and oddly shaped.

What a great opportunity. Nomura was intending turning the London Dome into a business park. I hate the thought of that, but should our councillors and local politicians not be looking along similar lines?

Surely we want a Nomura-type of investment not another Butlins.

Here are some ideas. Could the site not be bought by the county or a suitable corporation and developed into a national institute for the arts or sciences or even an off-campus site of a university faculty, a National Institute for the Study of Complimentary Medicine or Computer Science and Information Technology?

Now, the latter idea sounds like a good one. What with our much-publicised IT skills shortages, could we not turn the site into a national centre for IT studies, and get one of those hugely successful US multinationals to sponsor it - Microsoft, Oracle or Cisco Systems Inc.?

Then we could get to work on other things (killing a few more birds with the same stone).

We could turn that tree-less, flower-less and incredibly grim and overly tarmacked sea-front into an avenue of tastefully designed plain trees with beautiful flowerbeds, in fact a Minehead-version of the "Promenade des Anglais".

And then of course there would be an overly compelling argument to support the admirable efforts of Mr.Walker (TRL) and get a regular, practical, 40 minute train journey to/from Taunton.

Pipe-dream? I fear so. But what a great challenge!

Tim Holmes,

Minehead.