Val Gibbons, of Seymour Drive, Dartmouth, writes:

Each and every day we learn, via the media, about reduced or cancelled funding by the Government or by councils. Police numbers, libraries, youth clubs, rural bus routes and street cleaning are just a few of the threatened services.

Perhaps among the most distressing for those immediately affected is the sudden closure of a residential home. The often very elderly folk have worked hard for most of their lives, with few of the perks that today’s employees expect, and are being failed in their most vulnerable years.

For those who have strived to own their own property, or who have saved prudently, that investment funds their care.

If residential care is deemed to be too expensive to provide and is no longer available to those in need, there can be no peace of mind, and this will be an increasingly worrying ­concern to all of us – our ­elderly family members and for our own unforeseeable futures. Insecurity is, in itself, ­damaging to our health.

It was with these considerations in mind that I was incensed by recent coverage in The Daily Telegraph about how some failed asylum seekers are being cosseted in a former ­luxury hotel in west Sussex.

Run by the Home Office, this secure, country manor-type accommodation, set in ­beautiful surroundings, cost the taxpayer nearly £6.4m pounds in its first nine months between 2014 and ‘15, despite only being occupied for around 40 nights. The cost of a stay in Cedars House equated to more than £457,000 for each of the few families who resided there.

Being en route to deportation, having been judged as being unqualified to claim asylum, these families are ­having ridiculous and unjustifiable expense wasted on them. There will most certainly be cheaper and more basic accommodation nearby for what is, after all, just a short stay. Flying them home privately would no doubt save us money.

I forwarded the article to Dr Sarah Wollaston MP, who emailed me the comment

from the Home Office. You’ve guessed it: it justified its ­profligacy with our money, claiming that those concerned were vulnerable.

Hard-working MPs must despair when addressing their local poor.

Full details can be read online, and it genuinely is worth knowing what the Government will splash out on people from other countries.

Although I’d advise that you avoid the article if you suffer from high blood pressure.