Kevin Pyne, of Lake Street, Dartmouth, writes: The Lower Ferry works well as it is and the people on both sides of the River Dart like it that way. The ferry is reliable, particularly when you consider that there have been many occasions when the Higher Ferry and passenger ferries have stopped for bad weather and the Lower Ferry was the only route across the river, especially when it has been howling, as our winters sometimes have been. As for the ferrymen, on the whole they are loyal, conscientious and well-loved by ­customers. Their lady boss is bright, friendly, accommodating and on-the-ball, while the maintenance crews chip in and help run it in the event of ­holidays or sickness. To sell things off might well be fashionable, but it does not always work. For example, look at the mess the railways are in. Nor is it in anyone's interest to see a monopoly of the marine craft ownership on the Dart. The plant is well-maintained and worth a fortune, and if it brings in between £100,000 and £250,000 a year, then that is ­certainly worth chucking in the district's pot. So either let it go along as it is or hand it back to Dartmouth Town Council, which ran it just as well, if not better, than the district council ever has. Because it is our ferry in our town, and no one knows as much about it or why it is the way it is (it was here in Chaucer's time), if you kill the ferry you will kill what is good about the two towns that it serves. The district council should know this, or is it now so devoid of any sense of the ­communities it serves that it no longer sees us as people with loves and quirks of our own, but more as just money tubes to be squeezed for the bid and for parking charges, or for that matter anything it can wrestle or mentally torture out of us? The ferrymen are not paid well at all, they just effectively do enough extra hours to make a kind of wage. Many of them have given the best of their health and they suffer problems caused by long hours of standing and chronic vibration. So are they now to be told, 'Oh, you can work for less to make some fat cat even fatter.'? What they do, and for the cordial and considered way in which they do it, they deserve better from their employers. To sell the ferry does not seem necessary at all and to propose it smacks of cronyism by those who we elect to do our bidding and the best for us locally. To me, so much around the town today that happens is sanctioned by the district ­council, and when you ask folk why no one seems to know. And the person or persons who did the hatchet job on us at the district council has retired on a handsome pension, ­leaving nothing but confusion and misery in their wake.