SIR - Labour councillors Marc Baylis and Pam Clayton pitch in to the Guildhall debate with their strongly-held personal views.

The Guildhall is a great historical building of which we are all justly proud. I would like to see it as the centre of the county museum. It deserves to be in the county town, visited and loved by scores, if not hundreds of thousands - not just a few thousand as at present.

But we don't run the city council according to what I or any individual councillor wants.

We take decisions for the whole city based on professional advice.

I have no problem with the factual content of the Guildhall working party's report. It highlights both opportunities and obstacles to increasing revenue and the number of visitors.

The problem is that these councillors are profoundly mistaken in closing or even looking properly at all the options.

I'm afraid they have not grasped how seriously the Government's massive under-funding of Worcester impacts on the council's budget and local services.

As cabinet member for safer and stronger communities, I am accountable for helping the homeless, community centres, youth workers and CCTV. These services assist and protect vulnerable people. We must find the money to keep them going.

Unless we have looked at our own performances and been prepared to sacrifice some of them, we committee cannot claim we are doing our best to protect vital public services.

F D LANKESTER, Worcester.