Having attended the Helston Town Council meeting last week, I was interested to hear and see that Culdrose have given the council a very nice aerial picture of Helston. 

After approximately a half hour debate between councillors, as to whether or not the picture should be mounted in the mayor’s parlour or the council chamber, the latter being available to the public eye, they finally decided to request a second copy from Culdrose. If this is not possible, then they intend to purchase a second copy themselves.

Personally I believe to request a 'second' of any gift is impolite; they have already been given a smaller copy of the larger image. To frame the picture they are prepared to pay a hundred pounds. 

Whilst I think the lovely gift obviously needs to be framed and mounted, I do not believe in times of austerity and increases in council tax, that they should be considering purchasing a second copy which would also require the cost of framing. I think they should 'make do' with the large and smaller copy they already have. 

I was rather surprised to see that only two councillors, Councillor John Boase and Councillor Nicola Boase, appeared to be the only ones against spending taxpayers’ money unnecessarily on a second copy and voted against. 

Personally I believe they were right to vote against and in my view it is a shame they were of course outvoted by the majority. It may seem a negligible amount of money to some, but in my view, the principle of any local council currently spending anything unnecessarily out of local taxpayers’ money is categorically wrong.

Gill Zella Martin,
Mullion