SIR - Having returned from living in Spain a few months ago, I was totally bemused to read that the Christopher Whitehead/Tesco proposal had not materialised. Before leaving Spain had I read that Tesco had offered to build a brand new hi-tech school equipped to the highest standards with the most modern teaching aids and recreational facilities on a new site, in exchange for the old school site and at absolutely no cost to the city ratepayers.

It seems to me - and every dispassionate bystander - that it must have appeared a brilliant idea for everyone concerned, with almost everyone winning and very few losers.

The children's education would improve, St John's would get a proper supermarket, the beleaguered residents of St Peter's would be free from hundreds of cars a week trundling through the estate to their local Tesco from the Westside area, and not least, free up much-needed city coffers to improve the lot of the rest of the city dwellers.

As in many aspects of today's life, a small but highly vociferous minority can paralyse the correct thinking of politicians who should be acting in the best interests of the wider public that they purport to represent.

Objections raised by these minority groups on the grounds of road safety are tosh - 95 per cent of children are ferried to the gate in cars anyway and the other objections to a Tesco's presence in St John's do not stand up to scrutiny and are just not sustainable. Nimbyism is the term, I understand.

The city councillors in my view are looking a gift horse so far in the mouth they are in danger of looking out the other end and in the process of scuppering the whole project, yielding yet another blow to common sense prevailing in Worcester.

BOB ROSS, Malvern.