SIR — It's great news that Minehead has been granted a £200,000 government "windfall" (Free Press March 16) but why is £70,000 being used to employ a "visioning manager" for 18 months?

It doesn't take much "vision" to realise Minehead needs to re-instate its visitor information centre, which was costing £40,000 a year to run.

So the £70,000 "expert fee" would pay for the running of the centre for almost two years!

Cllr Richard Lillis was quoted as defending the fee by stating "if you pay peanuts . . . then you get monkeys".

Yet peanuts seems to be what Minehead Development Trust is offering the visitor centre manager post currently advertised at a pathetic £20,000 per annum (a post, incidentally, for which there is apparently no job description – how clever is that?)

We have a perfectly adequate (if rather hideous looking) visitor centre on the seafront, so why the need to rent alternative premises?

And how environmentally friendly is it that for some inexplicable reason the seafront centre is still fully lit inside at night?

If a proper business plan had been prepared when applying for the EU funding to build the centre, it would have been obvious that sufficient income would not be generated to cover the running costs.

Any bank manager being asked to lend start-up funds would have seen the flaws in the financial projections.

And like any bank, won't we have to repay the EU now we have a non-operating facility?

Minehead Development Trust argues that the seafront location of the visitor centre isn't attractive because of lack of parking and is inconvenient for local residents.

Surely the parking arrangements were known when the plan was first put forward – they were certainly no worse than trying to find free parking in the town centre to visit the former information office.

Anyone with "vision" (and a £70,000 hand-out to boot) will know that the majority of visitors to Minehead are generated by Butlins and therefore the location of the seafront centre is ideal.

And I sincerely hope that some of the £10,000 earmarked to refurbish the bandstand in Blenheim Gardens will also be used to do something about the disgraceful public toilets in the gardens.

I am always ashamed and embarrassed when taking visitors to the enjoyable free summer weekend concerts, who then have to use toilets which are stuck in a 1950s time warp. Dirty, grim and a sad reflection on how we value our visitors.

So, please someone, sort out the finances – we get given a £200,000 bonus with one hand and throw much of it away with the other.

Just how "visionary" is that?

Jenny Campbell,

Bowline Court,

Minehead.