I was dismayed to see the front page story in the Ledbury Reporter (April 25) 'Ring road extension - offer made'.

Coun Barry Ashton risks spoiling our countryside - damaging the very thing that makes our area so special - and all for no real purpose.

Few would object to his first proposal, to link the bypass to the Bromyard Road industrial estate.

This long-planned road would pass through uncontentious low-lying land and might reduce heavy traffic in the High Street. It's a shame to cover green fields with tarmac, but if the industrial estate needs to expand, then it's probably fair enough.

The same cannot be said of Mr Ashton's second proposal, to carve a road from Bromyard Road to Worcester Road.

Any such route would involve the destruction of well-loved countryside and what's the point? The new bypass would simply encourage ever-increasing numbers of heavy goods vehicles onto the road to Malvern.

Malvern's streets wouldn't cope, so why build the bypass in the first place?

Mr Ashton chooses to ignore both the environmental cost and the knock-on effects of the road he proposes.

Martin Johnson, Progress Close, Ledbury.