I WRITE in response to the Helen Davies article in the Sunday Times and the nomination of Penarth as the best place to live in Wales.

One of or two of your correspondents have already referred to another, ugly side to living in the town, but all they referred to were uneven pavements and cigarette butts.

Hardly a problem worth mentioning when Penarth is blighted by a number of abandoned and derelict buildings. Some of these are by the pier and are easily spotted by visitors to the town. The council have been taken to task over the out of date tourist signs in the area, but again these are insignificant complaints when compared to the sight of boarded up mansions and perhaps worst of all the once-beautiful and elegant terrace on the Portway Barrage, which looks like a scene from a battlefield. That is another gateway to Penarth that is now a blight and a disgrace to the town, and it has been an embarrassment to locals for nearly 30 years. By all means celebrate the good points of Penarth but let us not sugar-coat the neglect and poor stewardship that the council is guilty of.

Richard Pawelko,

Plymouth Road,

Penarth