YOU reported (Ledbury Reporter, May 4) a £1 million handout 'to ease the economic impact of the foot and mouth crisis'.

On any day in the past miserable weeks it has been disconcertingly easy to park in Ledbury, a clear sign our tourists have been staying away in significant numbers. Like it or not, it is they who keep our main street shops, hotels, restaurants and galleries open and retain for us what little is left of that famous description of Ledbury: "One of the finest small market towns in England".

It is to maintaining what is left of that character that the foot and mouth million should go - if it ever materialises once June 7 has passed - and not Ledbury's by-pass.

Herefordshire Council has been with us for more than three years. For more than a dozen years five hectares of employment land has been available on New Mills and not taken up. All we got was the very welcome return of Ledbury Welding and now a proposal for a restaurant for teenagers and children by the Viking roundabout.

The jaundiced, world-weary and sceptical will see the 'through the viaduct' idea as the thin edge of yet another wedge. Build a restaurant (A3 use) on employment land (B1 etc); open up more employment land elsewhere; then claim you cannot get anyone to use the first lot for jobs and push the idea of filing it with Prescott-cheek-by-jowl dwellings at 30 and more to the hectare when New Mills is, as many of its residents now agree, overcrowded and lacking in amenity and open space.

If there is £1 million for local post-foot and mouth regeneration, now is the time to move Ledbury Town Council offices to other premises (the Cottage Hospital building, was, after all, given to Ledbury not to the NHS or the Herefordshire Hospitals Trust). Bring Nos. 1 and 3 Church Lane up to the security standards the V&A requires before it will lend furniture. Fit those premises out as the Constables' home and Court of Pipepowder that it was in the 16th Century (Law & Order; Taxation and Justice). Do a similar job for the Heritage Centre (Education, Church & State etc) and the Butchers Row house (Trade and Domestic Life). Move and expand the Butchers Row collection into the Burgage Hall (Town life, Agriculture and Food production resource and research centre) and - with whatever money is left or additional funding can be raised - do what Ireland has done so successfully; provide worthwhile grants to Ledbury townspeople prepared to embark on quality bed-and-breakfast home improvements.

If your readers think the farming industry has been forgotten - not so. Whereas Herefordshire Council's proposal offer farmers absolutely nothing, those who were fortunate enough to avoid culling will hopefully make up some leeway from the rise in meat prices. Those who lost all their stock are to have (for what it is worth) government compensation.

My suggestion spreads the thin jam of 'compensation' to those who are not within that scheme but, from the evidence on the streets of the town, have also been economic losers.

If we can persuade tourists to come back and to stay a little longer it will be they who will enjoy finding out more about Ledbury's history; seeing how Herefordshire is recovering; at the same time, benefiting our economy by staying in local accommodation; eating and buying our farmers' fresh local produce; and buying our traders' goods.

SYLVIA M PICK, Woodfield Road, Deer Park, Ledbury.