Francesca Johnson, of Swannaton Road, Dartmouth, writes: After reading yet another 'headline' article last week, – 'BID board faces call for changes', Chronicle, June 12 – that was full of misinformation and incorrect facts, I would like to issue a plea to the editor at the Dartmouth Chronicle to seriously reconsider how they are reporting our news. Dartmouth is a small ­community with limited ­stories, so I do appreciate the need to sell newspapers with attention-grabbing headlines. The integrity of the Chronicle does, however, come into question when comments fuelling such articles are not researched properly before printing. With larger towns and cities this style of reporting is just mildly destructive, but Dart-mouth has only a small group of volunteers and organisations and a literal constant battering of them in this style can often become very personal – hence my decision to pen this letter. I know that the paper's usual response to such criticism is that 'they are only reporting what has been said by other individuals'. Fair enough, but if a person quoted that the water supply in Dartmouth was polluted I am sure it would check this out before requoting. For example, in last week's edition, the front and inside pages carried yet more of the endless Business Improvement District-bashing quotes, this time from Gordon Anderson regarding a petition linked to the Falmouth and Dartmouth BIDs. Once again we see a large piece of news containing comments that were totally incorrect. I suppose the Chronicle felt that it was acting diligently by asking the Dartmouth BID to reply about the petition Mr Anderson is organising to seek a BID boundary change. The Dartmouth BID has had several confusing communications from Mr Anderson, including him saying he ­supported the BID and wanted to be a BID ambassador; but then more recently saying he is relocating his business to Manchester because he does not agree with the £3-per-week BID levy. The Dartmouth BID knew nothing, however, about any petition, so obviously it was impossible for it to comment. Yet why did the Chronicle fail to also contact the Falmouth BID to verify the supposed ­reason for his petition? If it had carried out this basic reporting task it would have been able to report accurately that Falmouth has never considered changing its BID levy boundary. This is not legally possible of course, as BID legislation clearly states. The Falmouth BID did, however, hold an extraordinary general meeting to allow ­supportive businesses outside its BID boundary to join the BID board. This would have shown how the BIDs are ­actually viewed in a positive light by the large majority, but instead, once again, Dartmouth only gets to hear the continued inaccurate ramblings of a small minority who fail to accept that the BID is legally here to stay and the team of which is finally focused on delivering its ­business plan after a difficult first year. The BID is designed to support members of the commercial community of Dartmouth, many of which help to keep the Chronicle in business by generating advertising revenue. So I am constantly surprised and saddened to see such negative press, which obviously hinders such an important project. It will be interesting to see if this letter is published. As a previous BID manager, I have been at the sharp end of such activities, both in the press and via social media, so I know how distressing and damaging this can be. People should be supported for volunteering their time for the good of the community, but the town council, the tourist information centre, The Flavel, Dartmouth Indoor Pool Trust, Dartmouth Caring, Dartmouth Food Bank and many more have all suffered similar ­negative press in the past. Consequently, I have chosen to volunteer less of my time in the future and let others take the strain. This is not something that I am proud of, but I am sure that I am not the first and will not be the last person to do so. Well done to all of those who have destroyed my community spirit – and this very much includes the Chronicle. So I do hope that my ­comments are printed and responded to, and most of all I really hope that what many of my associates now refer to as 'the Chronic' will choose to evolve back into the Dartmouth Chronicle. A local community paper that, unlike many of the cheap tabloids, will never be accused of lazy journalism and consequently at no time find its integrity challenged in the future.