SIR - Before the sorry saga of the Royal Observer Corps premises in Abbotts Road disappears from the headlines, I, as the son of one of the more senior officers of the Hampshire Group', feel I should correct some errors of fact which continue to appear.

I have seen several reports of the place in Abbotts Road being described as a Post'. This is far from being the case.

It was virtually the headquarters of No 3 Group - latterly renumbered as No 17 Group.

This was to where some 50 or so Posts' throughout Hampshire reported the sightings of aircraft - to be then passed on to Stanmore (Middlesex!). (When one sees scenes on TV/the cinema of plotters' around a large map/table, it is here where our local one was sited.) At random I would quote that some of the Posts' were at Kings Worthy, Upham, and Fordingbridge, but many sites have been built over. Indeed the post at Cadnam is now under the M27!

Prior to the building of the Abbotts Road place, the centre was in "borrowed" accommodation - firstly on the top of the telephone exchange in Upper Brook Street, and later near what is now Dolphin House in Jewry Street. I would guess the move to Abbotts Road was in early 1943.

Quite frankly, I would agree that to demolish it is the only realistic course of action; but it is a sorry outcome that this fate is what should happen to what was a unique example of a type of building which helped us win that war.

George Stoney.

Fairfield, Itchen Abbas.