SIR, I agree with the two letters in last week’s Border Telegraph asking why it was necessary to send 16 councillors and officials to a site at Avonmouth to visit a waste treatment facility.

I would like to know, when Scottish Borders Council is allegedly cash-strapped, who authorised this trip and how much it cost the Council taxpayer.

If a visit was really necessary, why did not just one official and one councillor travel?

In the same newspaper, it is reported that toilet blocks in Selkirk and across the Borders face closure to save cash and there is no budget funding to make the town’s Yarrow Terrace, Buccleuch Road and Mill Street one-way permanently.

I have just returned from Orkney where the towns are well kept, toilets open, and excellent shops. There is no need to visit...these are facts.

One could go 'on and on’. But surely it is time that councillors backed their taxpayers. Alternative, is not to cast your vote at the next election.

I am, etc.

Atholl Innes Yarrow Terrace Selkirk