Kevin Pyne, of Lake Street, Dartmouth, writes:

I rather feel that seeking a title such as Royal, Dartmouth would be complete and embarrassing twaddle.

We are already graced with royal patronage for our regatta and honoured to have had royalty train among us and stay with us in the past.

They know our creeks and river and we have always given them privacy when they were among us and, for myself and I suspect for so very many others, that will do.

Royal Wootton Bassett said and did for us all and our glorious heroic fallen of war what no other town was in a place to do, geographically or logistically, at the time and our sovereign thanked the people of that town for doing so, on behalf of all of us, in a hugely honorable and special way.

Moreover, I can't but help wonder why do we need to market what we have or have a branding and marketing group at all. People come because what we have is unique and extremely beautiful already. So much so that if we just keep it as it is, surely it markets itself.

Should you engage with visitors they will tell you how lucky we are to live here.

The towns in the Dart valley work because they do – so why not just enjoy it and leave it alone, so the discerning may find them for the treasures that they are and we can live among them and not in some freakish midsummer crowded, marketed hell where no one, visitor or resident, is the winner?

We seem to be suffering from a surfeit of bored, nice, clever folk who don't know that what they already have is a box of jewels.