Richard Rawlins, of Beacon Road, Kingswear, writes:

Sue Pudduck’s comments about the June 14 meeting of Kingswear Parish Council, Chronicle, June 24, are timely.

The elephant in the Sarah Roope Rooms, where the ­council meets, remains the anonymous letter written last September and endorsed by 33 residents.

It was alleged that three named lady councillors – Lucy Payne, Elizabeth Essex and the council’s present chairman Jan Henshall – had acted in their own self-interest.

No evidence has been offered in support of this contention and no justification offered for having made it.

Thirty residents have ­withdrawn their names from the letter, but three have not done so. Nor, as far as the ­public knows, have the letter’s anonymous authors and ­compilers.

Calls for the council to investigate the performance of its members have gone unheeded.

The parish council’s previous chairman, Cllr Jonathan Hawkins, suggested that the issue was ‘private’. Surely that cannot be so – the performance of councillors is a matter of public interest.

Unless and until a proper inquiry reports on the ­allegations, it is hard to see how the ambitions for village ­harmony, as expressed by Mrs Puddock and so many ­residents, can come about.

Ironically, the councillors who are the subject of the ­allegations support an inquiry. The narrow majority of ­councillors who do not should explain why they do not do so.