AT the time when the plans for Malvern’s Townsend Way – the road itself, the supermarket, the retail park, the industrial estate – were being considered, the developers claimed that the development would “not affect the vitality, viability and variety of the existing town”. The planners at that time and local politicians supported this claim, it seems. At least the plans went through. Now we can plainly see that it was a spurious and cynical claim.

Ledbury, observe and tremble.

In their responses in the current draft of the South Worcestershire Development Plan, some of the would-be developers have the gall to propose housing numbers vastly in excess of the already grossly excessive figures proposed in the plan. This is presumably a tactic (with the connivance of the planners?) to make the plan seem like a proposal of reasonableness and moderation, instead of the destructive developer-led document it clearly is.

Remember that the proposal is for at least another 1,000 houses in the Malvern town area. If you add this to the 2,500 houses proposed for Kempsey, then think of the additional traffic hitting the A449 and the A440, it will take vastly more new infrastructure than the present tinkering with Whittington island to prevent total gridlock between Malvern and Worcester and the Worcester South junction of the M5.

By then though, the developers, the planners and dozy and compromised local politicians, will have gone, and a new generation of Malvern residents will look around and wonder who let it happen.

Thank you for keeping the issue alive in your letters pages. In the interests of localism perhaps the developers and planners and local politicians would care to engage in this debate, for instance by replying to the points raised in this letter.

Or are their huge interests best served by maintaining their silence, knowing that they are always likely to prevail and that localism is so much hot air.


CHARLES EDEN
Madresfield