Sir: Robert Beaumont (City life, 6 December), whomsoever he may be, didn't do his research when he visited Nottingham. Its heritage is manufacturing, not mining, and so the city was unaffected by the pit closures in the 1980s and 1990s, as it didn't have any. The 'melancholy' and 'bitter legacy' which apparently hung over the city when Mr Beaumont visited must have been one of those awful 'northern' fogs which had perhaps journeyed down to the city long known as the Queen of the Midlands. That can be the only explanation for the clouded vision that allowed him to make a truly remarkable journey from the Victoria Centre to Broadmarsh simply by walking down Clumber Street. Clumber Street actually takes you to Gustafson Porter's awardwinning Market Square, which Mr Beaumont must have missed while he was busy lamenting the lack of a plaque commemorating Jesse Boot.

It is on the art nouveau building directly behind this 'lack of imaginative regeneration'.

Incidentally, Boots 'magnificent modern industrial architecture' is indeed 'curiously detached' from Nottingham. It is in Beeston.

The greatest sadness about Nottingham is that Boots sold off its high-street optician business.

Mr Beaumont would have found it immensely useful. 'Liverpool-type embarrassment' looms, I'm afraid.

Richard Baker Ravenshead, Nottingham