I attended an Exmouth Town Council meeting a good while back when the BID project (Journal, October 27) was first mentioned.

It seemed to me to be a way they had found to use up money that was no longer needed, as the town manager had left and was not being replaced as such. The business people at the meeting said at that time that it stood no chance.

Instead of wasting many thousands of pounds employing a ‘consultant’, the council could easily have confirmed a lack of business interest, and for free, by asking those businesses and their representative organisations that they are in regular contact with.

This ‘initiative’ is nothing of the sort. It is wasting money on a job creation scheme and is thoroughly irresponsible at any time, let alone in the present times of financial constraint.

We could have seen more of the wanted, but reduced, services, or a cut in the rates, with this money.

Tim Todd

(via email).