I SAW in disbelief the reports of Cllr Ben Grower's howls of complaint at £80,000 being spent on a “Welcome to Bournemouth” sign over the A338.

My wife and I have become frequent visitors to Bournemouth over recent years and have found the town to be so welcoming in every respect. We must have spent many hundreds of pounds here both in hotel charges and countless sorties to shops, restaurants and centres of interest, etc.

Multiply this by the thousands and thousands of visitors which Bournemouth receives and entertains each year, the revenue, both direct and indirect to the town must run into many millions.

So the council's financing of the £80 000 sign is but a small token to add to the welcome (and perhaps thanks?) extended to the vast numbers of tourists from home and abroad who contribute so much towards Bournemouth's financial buoyancy.

MALCOLM HENSHER, Steeple Aston, Oxfordshire