AT LAST someone has been prepared to state the obvious about the Midland Hotel (G R Yates, Letters, last week).

Once again councillors appear to be sleep-walking into a similar adventure as the Blobby fiasco by putting the Midland Hotel in the hands of big business.

Anyone with an ounce of common sense can see that £9 million will nowhere near cover the restoration costs of such a complex building - and even if, by some miracle, costs are kept within budget the hotel would management never see a return on the capital employed, and they must know it.

There is one difference between the hotel and Blobby, though, in that this time people are carefully amassing the evidence. I doubt there can be an expensive whitewash again.

T S Senior, Marton Drive, Morecambe