I MUST congratulate the Echo and Cllr Roger West for bringing to our attention another example of misrepresentation by Bournemouth council over the fiasco that is the Citrus Building (Daily Echo, March 2).

Building up-market apartments in the biggest town centre problem area was not the mark of genius.

In order for these apartments to be sold at all, the services of an ‘out of town’ agent was required.

Then public money had to be spent in a vague attempt to deter the night-time revelry by semi-pedestrianising the area around Horseshoe Common and surreptitiously moving the taxi rank.

Then we must examine the ‘partnership’ between Morgan Sindall and the council.

This was not a 50/50 deal. Our contribution far exceeded Morgan Sindall’s. Why? And how will any profit be split?

Lastly, there is the nonsense of the ‘first-time buyers only’ message of appeasement.

As with the farce surrounding the sale of the Gladstone Mews development in Boscombe, it was a totally unrealistic concept to expect first-time buyers on Bournemouth’s below-average salary structure to be able to afford to buy apartments costing up to £350k.

Even a studio at £125,000 would be hard to get mortgaged.

So we have to assume that the Bournemouth Development Company knew exactly what would happen and their admission today that they are aware of 23 per cent of the apartments being in the hands of private landlords for letting purposes means that the trend will be to go down-market and values will drop along with rents.

At least if the block is full of nightclubbers they won’t have to find a taxi to go home.

GEOFF COOPER, Methuen Road, Bournemouth