HOW credible is this proposal to complete the Ledbury by-pass?

Each week, it seems, we have another episode in the Barry Ashton saga encouraging people like me to respond to imminent plans. I note he was termed a visionary in Your Letters (May 24). Apparently future growth and prosperity depends upon its construction, but only in one Ashton-led direction, that is, the grandiose urban-like sweep under the viaduct and up the hill parallel to Knapp Lane.

Should I dismiss all this as journalistic hype following the fantasies and obsessions of one influential individual and a few business interests or should I take it more seriously? When do I lie down in front of the excavators?

I need to know because there is an awful lot to lose here - a priceless natural environment of course, but particularly the setting in which that magnificent Victorian railway viaduct lies. Am I alone in thinking that a highway underneath such an historic structure is almost akin to sacrilege?

All this must be low priority stuff in the national scheme of things, but indifference and apathy have allowed stranger things to happen.

A by-pass may be desirable but not at any cost. It is not a panacea for all our problems.

The town would still need servicing as it does now. Knapp Lane and Bromyard Road could be solved by simpler, more cost-effective and environmentally sensitive means. Other realistic compromises and ideas do exist in fact some considered counter argument and debate in your paper would be more than useful before things get out of hand.

TONY BATEMAN, Newbury Park, Ledbury.