Peter Conisbee, chairman, Dartmouth BID Ltd, writes:

At the Dartmouth Business Improvement District, we are pretty used to inaccurate claims regarding the BID.

For the most part we ignore them and try to concentrate on the job that the town’s businesses voted for us to do, but sometimes the inaccuracies go a step too far and we feel obliged to put the record straight.

Some of the claims made by Jim Tregaskis, in his letter to the Secretary of State for Commun­ities and Local Govern­ment, Chronicle, Sept­ember 4, are a case in point.

In your report, you quote Norton Park chalet owner Mr Tregaskis as saying: ‘Approx­imately 150 BID levy payers were issued with a court summons following a number of reminders, the cost of which is being paid for by domestic ratepayers as well as non-domestic ratepayers.’

The correct position is that although a total of 122 summonses were issued, only 22 resulted in a court hearing with liability orders issued.

A charge of £80 was initially added to every summons to cover the legal costs, but this charge would have been removed by South Hams Council in the 100 cases where payment was made before the court date.

The very small administrative cost of issuing the summonses and subsequently removing them would have been factored into the overall annual charge made to the BID by South Hams Council for levy collection.

We understand that many of the chalets at Norton Park are let to visitors from around the country, and we understand that in high season these chalets let for in excess of £500 per week.

One of the many projects managed by the BID in the last 12 months was an advertising campaign using large posters designed to show how attractive Dartmouth is and to make it better known nationally.

These posters appeared on 115 commuter station platforms across London and the south east over a six-week period, and are estimated to have been seen an astonishing total of 20 million times.

Every chalet and holiday home owner in Dartmouth will have benefitted from this campaign for a levy equivalent to just £3 per week for each property – and we think that’s a fairly good return on investment.