Kevin Pyne, of Lake Street Dartmouth, writes:

Everyone who ever went near the public slipway on Dartmouth's North embankment knew this would happen, Hole found in slipway, Chronicle, May 17, that is apart, it would seem, the district council and the county council with their supposed vast expertise.

And yet the worst of it was that if it were not for Natural England we would have had a brand new slipway.

The story goes that Natural England held it all up so as to protect a worm that was not there because the river was too clean for it to inhabit.

We even moved our boats on to the park so as to give the contractors access for the plant needed to build the slipway, which has now fallen into the sea as we knew it would.

The whole thing is a disgrace and someone should be removed from office or get the sack because the public slipway has been getting worse and worse for years, with the district council unable to keep it clean, let alone maintain it.

Add the delays in the repairs to the Lower Ferry slipways, which are still closed when they should have reopened for Easter, and we can see what a fiasco this is turning out to be.