SIR - With reference to Mr Rebbeck's letter (Gazette, May 21). He has not been in Wotton-under-Edge long enough to remember that it (The Swan) was one of the finest restaurant/hotels in Gloucestershire with people coming far and wide.

It had excellent food and dinner dances every Saturday of a very high quality. The service was excellent and staff polite. Visitors even came from abroad to stay there.

One only has to look at our refurbished Falcon Hotel who have ridden themselves of undesirables to see what can be done in the town.

When the present owner of The Swan took it over everything changed - rents went up and up, and the standards dropped dramatically, encouraging the wrong element into the hotel. Garish boards appeared outside advertising various activities, encouraging what the present owner called 'Wotton yobs' in one of the recent Gazette reports on the matter. Yobs encourage yobs, as we were told only last week by someone and how right he was.

With the right ownership of the business it could be a thriving hotel/restaurant again except that the present owner of the building has already put a stop to that by getting planning for offices.

Mr Rebbeck needs to get his facts right.

Wotton residents, Names and address supplied