My dictionary defines an editor thus: “a person who edits a newspaper for publication”, while edit is defined as “preparing material for publication, esp the work of others”.

So who edited your story about the 6A Duke Street flat in Dartmouth? Someone should have, because it was a shoddy piece of work.

For example, “rumours circulating in the town this week suggest it was basically agreed to let the museum have the flat...” Rumours? Since when have decent newspapers relied on rumour, rather than fact? Or the fact that you have never set foot in the flat but feel sufficiently confident to quote a valuation by an anonymous estate agent who has not set foot in the place either.

In short, we are looking at a heavily biased – and amateurish – attempt to create a scandal where there is none.

This is the first and I sincerely hope the last time I will quote Donald Trump, but this really is fake news.

This letter is not being written as a town councillor but as someone who prefers truth to innuendo and facts to anonymous rumours.

David Gent

Churchill Court, Dartmouth

l Editor Stuart Nuttall replies: A newspaper’s role in the community it serves includes holding councillors to account for their actions – particulary with regard to decisions over the use of taxpayers’ money and public property they are custodians of.

Dartmouth Town Council evicted the tenants from the publicly-owned flat in Duke Street earlier this year and has said it is considering an option to allow the museum to use part of it and to use part of it for its own storage needs.

So, while it is a rumour from a good, anonymous source that this is the proposal now being pursued by councillors, this has not been confirmed to our reporter by the town council, which now seems to prefer to hold its discussions out of the watchful eyes and listening ears of the public and press.

The council had previously discussed what to do with the flat in 2013.

At the time, despite interest from the museum in making use of it at no cost to taxpayers, the council decided to spend around £75,000 of taxpayers’ money making it habitable for a family in need of social housing. The discussions were held in open council.

In November last year, the council’s corporate property committee decided in private session to evict the tenants.

Just days after that decision was reached, a South Hams District Council inspection of the flat found it in an “overall good condition”.

This appears inconsistent with an email last month to this newspaper sent by Cllr Richard Cooke, who was mayor at the time the decision was made.

In his email, he suggested the “real reason” the tenants were evicted was because of the state they had left the flat in – yet their tenancy didn’t end until April 22 this year.

In discussions following the eviction notice being sent out, Cllr Rob Lyon, the current mayor, is minuted as saying the apartment was “beautiful, it had a lovely bathroom and kitchen, it was on two levels with four bedrooms, but it’s not suitable for social housing”.

Too “beautiful” perhaps for those of limited means?