Thank you for the excellent spread on the Victoria & Albert鈥檚 revamped central courtyard (23 September).

Sadly, the comments attributed to me make it seem as if I was praising Chinese stone and denigrating our own UK stone industry. On the contrary, the UK industry is one of the finest

in the world and our adherence to important new European labelling regulations shows how seriously we take our responsibilities. These include meeting demanding standards in the samples we supply, which come in a wide range of sizes.

I do want to emphasise that European stone is of a high quality and is just as durable as any other stone; and just for the record I would like to point out that UK stonemasons are capable of cutting to tolerances that are just as narrow as their Chinese counterparts.

What I was attempting to point out is that for this specific contract, the stone we sourced from China was best able to do the job. Taking cost and quality into account, that may not be the case for the next job that comes along.

Postscript

Colin Goble, commercial director, Farrar Natural Stone

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