SIR – The fate of the former hospital building in Silver Street, Worcester, has recently attracted attention on the Worcester News letters page (Nevill Swanson, November 28; and councillors Geoff Williams and David Wilkinson, December 5) and rightly so because its dilapidated state is an utter disgrace.

However the reply from the councillors, on behalf of the city council, is somewhat disingenuous and requires a robust riposte.

I am sure that the council has been in “close dialogue”

with the owners and will “monitor the condition of the building” – but both are rather late in the day and could have been avoided.

There are strong precedents for the granting of consent for large developments which include (the less profitable) restoration of an historic building embedded within the scheme.

When the Perdiswell offices were proposed the then city conservation officer Will Scott granted consent for the office buildings but work on them could only proceed after the developers had completed the restoration of the former stables and coach house.

All parties knew from the outset what was expected and in complying, delivered a very satisfactory outcome.

So it is somewhat surprising to find that Carillion Richardson, the developers of the former vinegar works who were extremely keen to exploit this large site (and managed to remove most of the historic buildings which were not protected by law), were not forced to accept such a condition.

Had this simple yet binding requirement been agreed at the outset then we would now still have the Asda supermarket and the adjoining retail units but instead of a building which languishes on the Heritage at Risk register we would have a remarkable piece of our rightly prized heritage and all parties would have been satisfied.

It is worth commenting that this letter could have been equally written about the derelict property in St John’s which remarkably the Sainsbury supermarket group has managed to ignore – but then it, too, is probably being “closely monitored” by the council.

Dr MALCOLM NIXON

Worcester