I WOULD like to correct the impression given by comments in your article 'Sports Group scores in cash bid' in last week's edition.

The Tavistock Athletic Club did not 'drop out of the CRA to pursue its own plans'. Since 1994 our policy has been consistently to work with other involved organisations towards a range of quality sports facilities being developed in the Crowndale valley.

The athletic club does need a quality running track and athletic field facilities as originally envisaged but we also have a total dependency on a sports hall facility and it is for this reason that we have used the Tavistock College facilities since the club was originally founded in the late 1980s.

We have consequently always campaigned for all involved organisations to work together to ensure that compatible sports facilities are developed on the Tavistock College campus and at Crowndale. The real bonus of this approach is that it is the best way to attract external funding for the significant investment required.

Our approach appeared to have been vindicated in December 1999 when West Devon Borough Council instigated and funded a strategic sporting study of the Crowndale valley.

Not surprisingly, the study concluded that there should be 'a co-ordinated approach to the development of facilities in Crowndale valley'. As you reported in June last year, 'Sport England stated that any lottery bid would stand a far better chance if the authority and local clubs signed up to the principles of a strategic overview'.

Sadly, the recommendations of the study have not been progressed and we continue to offer our young people both at Tavistock College and within the community very basic and often unusable facilities. Until we get our act together and achieve the external funding that has been so absent in West Devon for so long this situation will not change.

C R Musgrave

Chairman

Tavistock Athletic Club