Dr Richard Rawlins, of Beacon Road, Kingswear, writes:

Surely we all share Kingswear Parish Council’s acting chairman Mike Trevorrow’s ‘fervent wish that people would search their consciences before they dish out criticism to others – I wish they would ­consider the consequences of their harsh words’, Chronicle, September 18.

All the more remarkable, then, that a cabal, the members of which describing themselves wrongly as a ‘majority of ­residents’, issued a letter ­complaining about three named parish council councillors, alleging that they had ‘acted with self-interest’ and ‘contrary to three of the seven principles of public life espoused by Nolan’.

Read in public at the parish council meeting on September 8, surprisingly, it seems most of the cabal signed the letter ­without having read it; and few, if any, knew of the Nolan principles of ethics it quoted.

It is hard to see why only three principles were referred to. Given that one of the seven principles is ‘Honesty’, and given that the cabal expressed no concern about the named councillors’ propriety in that respect, its cited concern about ‘Selflessness’ is incoherent and makes no sense, for Lord Nolan originally had: ‘Selflessness. Holders of public office should take decisions solely in terms of the public interest. They should not do so in order to gain financial or other material ­benefits for themselves, their family or their friends.’

No doubt the letter’s signatories can justify their allegations about the councillors’ propriety, but to also complain that the councillors were unelected – they were co-opted – when not one of the cabal stood in the most recent election is unfair and unworthy.

Indeed, when a vacancy for a councillor arose last week, only one resident put their name ­forward. No democratic choice there.

Concerns about the chairmanship and governance of Kingswear Parish Council and calls for there to be early ­elections should be heeded.

However, unless the serious allegations made about the named councillors’ propriety can be justified transparently, the signatories should resile from the letter and offer the councillors apologies for the anxiety and distress caused them, whether intended or not.

If no apology is forthcoming, I call on council chairman Cllr Jonathan Hawkins to institute an inquiry to establish the truth of the allegations.

Only then will Cllr Trevorrow’s wish, ‘that the parish council return to a balanced, good-humoured and productive way of working’, come about.