WHILE I do hesitate to take issue with the respected author, long-time contributor to the Malvern Gazette and for 18 years board member of Malvern Hills Conservators, Dudley, Brook (Your Letters, December 10), I simply cannot let his potted history of the demise of the Worcestershire Beacon caf stand as a true record of what happened. It is, I fear, a history viewed very much through rose-tinted glasses.

The mainly timber caf was first erected in 1877 (or thereabouts) and burnt down in 1988. Following this the MHC were advised (quite wrongly in my view) that they required an Act of Parliament in order to replace it.

It had been there since well before the MHC had been created by the first Malvern Hills Act of 1884 and thus had established a clear legal status in all respects.

The bill ran into a huge argument in committee in the House of Lords, the end result being that it was decimated. So many groups of people had been so offended that the bill ended up being opposed by three independent groups.

Quite apart from Tim Cameron, Roy Hart and I being present in that committee room, representing no less than 85 other local residents, there were present representatives of the Open Spaces Society, the Ramblers' Association, Malvern Civic Society and the Green Party - to name only some.

If you wish to conduct an argument there is no more expensive way of doing it than by doing it in committee in Parliament where you have to pay for the whole works, including the very expensive parliamentary drafting agents and a Queen's Council (representing the MHC).

After the third day of this most expensive argument (it cost the MHC over £250,000 in all) the Lady chairman, Baroness Serota, decided the committee should take the somewhat unusual step of actually visiting the Malvern Hills.

The good Baroness was (if I recall correctly) 76 years of age at the time. She led her private bill committee up the hills to look at the site of the former caf and, shock horror, pronounced that she could see no need for a caf there at all.

I was then and am now fully in agreement with her ladyship. These hills are not mountains, like Snowdon or Ben Nevis, they are merely small hills and as the lady said, if you cannot obtain refreshments before you start, or carry them with you, then perhaps you should not be going in for hill walking at all!

The Conservators could have immediately rebuilt the caf in 1988 when planning consent would not have been required. They could arrange for someone to build one on their behalf even now if they were so-minded, but I hope they are not and will not be.

If they did pursue this path I very much doubt planning consent would be forthcoming and I, for one, would do my utmost to oppose such a move and I feel sure that many other genuine hill lovers would do likewise.

DAVID JUDSON, Castlemorton.