A SMALL but vociferous minority in Ledbury are beginning to argue the Master's House - in limbo for the last five years - should be sold to a developer.

I was initially surprised informed people who claim to have the best interests of the town at heart are prepared to have this historic building disappear. Yet their arguments appear to carry weight.

They argue the building has been allowed to deteriorate and is becoming a fire risk. They are angry at Herefordshire Council's failure to produce a positive plan for the future of the building and fear a repetition of the indecision which led to the old Grammar School remaining derelict for several years.

They claim the council has pushed it into the `too difficult' tray and are starving Ledbury of information.

Exceptions are the statements by councillors Don Rule and Roy Stockton that the Tourist Information Centre will locate to the Master's House in the near future.

Significantly, at a recent packed meeting sponsored by the town's civic society to discuss the Master's House, this is one decision strongly objected to by all in the audience.

Finance, as always, has to be the key to unlocking this problem. Those who propose selling the Master's House believe they have a killer argument. If the Master's House site were to be sold, the money raised would pay for a building which could combine the library, council information centre and recreational facilities.

Ledbury would be guaranteed modern services for the 21st Century.

Others would argue this fine market town, depending heavily on tourist income, would lose a priceless historical asset.

Commissioned by Ledbury Civic Society, archaeologists from Nottingham University have confirmed that timbers used in the construction of the Master's House were felled in 1487. They have scientifically proved the building is the earliest, extant, free-standing hospital master's house in the country.

Do we really wish to exchange it for the developer's latest ideas in `town-centre luxury apartments'?

LT CMDR J C EDWARDES RN (rtd), Horse Lane Orchard, Ledbury.