Your Shout: Alastair Murchie, Colliers Robert Barry

I was somewhat surprised to read Kevin Casserly's recent prediction that the end is nigh for the traditional city-centre bed and breakfast (Your Shout, Caterer, 4 March). My own experience leads me to a quite different view.

My firm handles the sale of numerous B&B businesses each year, many of them in larger towns and cities, including Bath, York, Edinburgh and London. The demand from buyers is always excellent, which suggests that there is plenty of confidence in a healthy future for this style of business.

Why the confidence? I think it's mainly a reflection of people's preference for staying in the small, personally owned and run hotel over the larger corporate alternative. Individuality is offered by the one, relative anonymity by the other, and I believe both will continue to co-exist happily enough.

Mr Casserly's point that many B&Bs and hotels will revert to their original residential use is well made, but that's largely a factor of the bullish state of the housing market at the moment. The same thing happened in the late 1980s, but there wasn't a significant loss to the sector, and recently we've seen some nursing homes being converted to small hotels, so the stock is replenished.

Looking forward, I certainly see a rosy future for the city B&B. As long as there are people who want to run their own business and like having the safety net of a high underlying property value, there will always be plenty of good quality small hotels. I certainly hope so - they're much more fun to stay in.

"I certainly see a rosy future for the city B&B"