With reference to the front page, Gazette, August 26. Have you checked your calendar? It’s not April 1.

You’re truly having a laugh...

A 90-bed hotel to be built in St Botolph’s Street – you show the old Keddie’s building, at the top of Queen Street, which is a few bricks short of St Botolph’s Street.

This is adjacent to the still incomplete Vaf.

Who says this hotel is needed? As I understand it, there are no shortage of beds in Colchester currently and I doubt very much if the vast numbers of potential visitors to said Vaf would be over-nighters.

Further, any casual visitors to Colchester for a night out won’t want to stay if they see the current state of, and the antics pertaining to, the town centre.

There are motorist-accessible hotels out of town which also don’t report a shortage of rooms.

A big modern hotel, converted from the Rank Hovis Mill, closed due to a lack of business.

It seems the current incumbents in the Town Hall have caught the expensive pie in the sky disease from the previous lot.

Before spending any more taxpayers’ money on dreams foisted on them by would-be developers, (how many of those have we had of late?) why not get the one job completed first?

And perhaps they need reminding that they got into office because Colcestrians were fed up with the previous lot.

It only needs a pencilled cross on a bit of paper at the next council elections to bin them an’ all!

They should also be reminded, as a planning authority, they don’t have a good track record.

The sundry taxpayerfunded quangos already in existence don’t seem to be doing much, either.

As for the Keddie’s building, it has space and can be converted to flats or offices within the current shell at low cost – or perhaps the plan to flatten it so everyone can see the magnificent Vaf should be revived!

As far as I know, it already has empty offices within. It also has a large frontage that could be converted back into retail units. Problem is, probably only bars and restaurants would be interested – or perhaps charity shops.

Business centre – what business? Has anyone from the council checked on the number of empty retail units closed because the business couldn’t generate enough profit to pay the council rates?

Bob Dove
Launceston Close
Colchester