Too many councils in county

In Troon, we have three Church of Scotland churches within a very short distance of each other.

The churches are costing a fortune in fabric repairs and maintenance.

Over the years, millions have been spent on these three buildings, there are also three manses again having very expensive upkeep costs

Of course we also have three preachers , salaried and each having fairly good pension schemes , all being paid for by an ageing, shrinking congregation, supported by a great band of enthusiastic fund raisers and dare I say it by “National Lottery funding”.

This does not make any sense. Now I would like to make comparisons with local government.

We have South Ayrshire, North Ayrshire and East Ayrshire , with of course three chief executives all earning super salaries all supported by armies admin staff , with each department triplicated viz Health and Safety, Building control, parks and leisure etc etc etc.

Each council have very expensive buildings to house staff and to be maintained by the hapless ratepayer.

Surely ONE administration could adequately cover Ayrshire.

The incumbents, of course will not want this , as they want to hang on to inflated salaries, expenses and various perks of the job BUT who should decide, the council employees, the ratepayers, the government, common sense seems to be missing attribute. Murray Gowie

Demolition is only option

On picking up my weekly Post, I was amazed at the figures in Stuart Wilson’s piece on the Station Hotel , £ 300k to effect make safe repairs , the sum of £ 3million for demolition from an unnamed source at South Ayrshire , and the figure of £ 10 million plus to refurbish to bring back into use . Of course works are still being carried out before the full and final report on the building will be presented to South Ayrshire , who will then have a choice to make about the future of the building.

If the building is too far gone to be saved and demolition is the only option, then would it not be in the interests of the taxpayers who will have to foot the bill for demolition, to use more of the councils statutory powers to compulsory purchase powers to buy the building.

When the time comes for a decision to be made it should be made in the interests of the public , with thought given to what would be best for the town perhaps if demolition is the only option then the cleared site could give the council the site for their new office development with the train and bus hub.

This would allow the demolition of the worst building in the town Burn’s house for redevelopment , as for the process of recovering any costs associated with the whole sorry saga from the owners of the Station Hotel, the council may find that a long and less than fruitful exercise.

Ian Stewart, 83 Thornyflat Road, Ayr

Trump‘ seconomicboost

I would love to share my thoughts with the Post a paper which I respect and buy on a weekly basis even though I live and work from Glasgow and holiday in Ayrshire every weekend.

With regards to your edition 11/ 7/ 2018 regarding Donald Trump and his arrival at Turnberry, I find it interesting once again what seems to be the press looking to demonise where they can.

Having spent two hours in front of Turnberry with my small family and ( and dog), we saw nothing of the kind of dislike nor protest against the man or the presidency.

Perhaps the mobs of London and Glasgow found the trip down the A77 too difficult or indeed have never heard of this beautiful part of the world which is our Ayrshire.

To have not only a businessman invest in over £ 240 million in the area creating jobs etc as well as the role of most important man in the word visit and promote Scotland, we should be proud to welcome him.

Andy Ward

Keep High St shops alive

With regards to small businesses, I approached an organisation that represents High Street shops as well as a periodical that covered the same subject, only to have them fail to see the strength of high street shopping as opposed to online shopping.

Online you can see images of products but you cannot try them on and if they don’t fit properly or don’t suit you when worn, you have to send them back.

Likewise you aren’t going to know what perfumes smell like or food tastes like over the internet - only real time experience can fill you in on that.

Music - again if you are buying audio equipment, you are not going to know what the actual item sounds like, unless you hear it in the flesh as it were.

Even if shops were continued as display sites for such items, so people could test them in reality, then order over the net, that at least would help keep both alive

Tony Sandy by email