Dr Richard Rawlins, of Beacon Road, Kingswear, Dartmouth, writes:

I do not share the concern of Kingswear Parish Council’s chairman Jonathan Hawkins that ‘we now have an unelected parish council’, and I challenge his claim that ‘of all the Kingswear parish councillors’ he ‘is the only truly elected councillor’, Chronicle, October 16.

South Hams Council’s ­website makes clear that on April 10, 2015, the returning officer declared: ‘The persons whose names appear below are duly elected parish councillors for Kingswear PC.’ The names were: Hector Newcombe, Jonathan Hawkins, Janice Henshall, Ruth Searle and Mike Trevorrow. They all have equal status.

I cannot agree with Cllr Hawkins’ assertion that the three councillors alleged to have acted without Nolan’s ‘standards for public life’ should ‘resign and let Kingswear decide whether they are worthy of being councillors for our parish’ unless and until justification for the allegations are forthcoming.

It will be quite impossible to judge their worthiness until the anonymous author of the accusatory letter is identified, as there may be deeper issues that require resolution. The signatories to the letter should declare the evidence on which they acted, or withdraw and apologise for the harm done to the reputations of the councillors that they identified in person.

Cllr Hawkins should make clear the extent to which he was involved in the drafting of the letter, as his own worthiness has also to be judged. Why he would not assist robustly the parish council getting to the bottom of this issue needs explanation.

Finally, the call to have a ‘poll’ on the issue cannot reasonably be considered further until the allegations have been refuted openly or confirmed.

Moreover, as our local governance is in the hands of the parish council, any poll would be for information and would not determine any course of action. The expense of a poll on the issue cannot be justified.

The poll that matters is the one that will be held under the auspices of South Hams Council in due time. Before then, the worthiness of all councillors requires assessment. Those ­signatories who have evidence of impropriety by the councillors they identified should be ­forthcoming, forthwith.