Editor: Just a reply on the filth in Aberystwyth, (Dirty old town, Cambrian News, 31 August). When I used to come on holiday years ago it used to be a lovely town — flowers out, streets spotless, kids in the paddling pool on the front — really nice place to come and visit.Now I live here and it’s a very dirty town — rubbish everywhere, no bins emptied, windows smashed on shop fronts. So, what’s happened to the lovely town of Aberystwyth?

I went to Llandudno the other month and it was spotless — no rubbish, no windows smashed.

So, come on Ceredigion County Council and sort this out.

Why not visit Llandudno and ask what they are doing, because they are certainly doing something right.

It is a great shame that it takes two visitors to our town to state the obvious when locals and countless other visitors have been saying this for a long time.

Yes, our lovely little town is filthy, and looks neglected, shabby, shockingly run-down, and quite frankly, a disgrace to our council, with rotting refuse a daily sight on many streets.

Most people are mindful of the financial constraints on councils these days and understand the challenges of prioritising over-stretched funds to where they are most urgently needed. We get that.

What is impossible to grasp is, given that tourism is our biggest industry next to agriculture, we appear to be making no effort whatsoever to make the town clean, presentable and welcoming to the visitors we are hoping to attract, even within those financial limitations.

Other towns in mid Wales are succeeding admirably in this respect.Only Aberystwyth stands out as being the exception. Why?

Do councillors actually go for a stroll through town and see the neglect and the mess?I have lost count of how many of my own family and friends visiting me have remarked on this decline over the past three or four years — yes, pre-pandemic — and I am always at a loss to give any satisfactory answer to the question “Why?”

So, I have to ask the powers that be... WHY?

A Evans,

Aberystwyth