WELL done for publicising the threat to Greenwich Market (Traders Receive Support, News Shopper, February 1).
While there may be some warm words from the Greenwich Hospital Trust we need to remember the trust is always going to fall back on its familiar argument it is there to support "Navy causes" when it comes to setting rents and proposing speculative property developments.
In this context it still has some difficult questions to answer.
Why for an income of £6m last year did it incur administrative costs of more than £1m?
And why did it donate £5m to a minor public school with limited connections to its original charitable remit?
This donation amounts to a subsidy of more than £7,000 per pupil in one year and explains why the trust registered a loss of more than £1.5m all figures from Greenwich Hospital Trust accounts.
Nothing less than a root and branch review of this "charity" will safeguard the future of the market and the rest of historic Greenwich.
Meanwhile, if the current director really wants to win "hearts and minds" in Greenwich why doesn't he relocate the trust's offices from the very expensive Queen Anne's Gate, SW1, to Greenwich itself.
It can also do worse than discuss with responsible landlords such as the Greenwich Picture House about how it could help re-launch the Greenwich Festival.
After a decade of taking from Greenwich it would be good to see the trust putting something back.
PAUL WHEELER
Blackheath Hill
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