Brian Parker, chairman, Dartmouth Museum board of trustees, writes:

It is sometimes said, with varying justification, that Dartmouth Town Council is not too good at doing its sums.

There is a spectacular example of that in last week's Chronicle article 'Restaurant to compete with museum for room', referring to the museum's bid to continue using the Jesse Room in the Butterwalk and improving its facilities for the benefit of the town.

Cllr David Cawley, in questioning that the museum is a major asset to the town, is quoted as saying 'on the figures given, less than one percent of tourists visit the museum.  This does not stack up at all.'

The much-reported annual figure for visitors to the museum is 10,000 which, by Cllr Cawley's arithmetic, leads to a yearly total of visitors to Dartmouth of one million. That certainly does not 'stack up'.

The true figure, according to the tourist information centre, is around 160,000, which makes the proportion visiting the museum at over six per cent, which is a very respectable total for small town museums.

It may be that Cllr Cawley's mistake is just a slip of the pen or a slip of the mind, but it does call into question the reliability of his statements in his seemingly continuing campaign against the museum, fortunately not succeeding on this occasion.

l Museum wins battle to unveil Jesse Room: page 22.