Letter to the Editor: After your article in Cambrian News (The port and the storm..., 19 October), there is clearly going to be a lot of comment on any marina proposals.

I thought it would be helpful to have the full facts about how we ended up with the marina, despite a strong campaign against it in 1993. Re-reading this after nearly 30 years, it is amazing how the objectors were right on nearly every aspect.

It is also interesting that in the last few years we have seen the emergence of a campaign to replace the Aberystwyth-Carmarthen railway line – this would have been far easier if Ceredigion District Council had listened to what the objectors were saying.

Now it seems likely that more money is going to be poured into a doomed project. Back in the 1990s, the Welsh Office thought they could make Wales a yachting hotspot like Brittany is in France.

They wanted a chain of marinas around the coast and pushed Ceredigion District Council behind the scenes into giving the plan the OK.

But Aberystwyth marina will never be successful:

• The communications to large population centres are poor.

• Yachting enthusiasts in these population centres already have better marinas within easier reach.

• The Irish Sea is exposed to the prevailing south-west winds coming straight in off the Atlantic Ocean.

• There are no sheltered waters around Aberystwyth (unlike New Quay which faces north-east and is well protected – that is why New Quay always has been popular with yachtsmen).

• You cannot exit Aberystwyth harbour if the winds are greater than force 5. Local yachtsmen tell me there are only 30 good yachting days in the average year.

Why would anybody want to put an expensive boat in a place like Aberystwyth marina?

Chris Simpson,

Aberystwyth