Wednesday's letters round up including 'The problems with lats above shops'

Back in the mid 1970`s the now much lamented, late Civic Trust campaigned for such initiatives through their pioneering study “Living over the Shop” and adopted as a pilot study the centre of York. As part of this initiative I undertook a similar pilot study here in Worcester using my Third Year students from the Cheltenham School of Architecture and we soon realised that while the scale of the problem was vast (even then over 60% of city centre properties had at least one vacant upper floor) and the regeneration aims laudable, the practical difficulties meant that little was actually achieved.

For this latest initiative to succeed there will need to be powerful central government incentives to encourage large corporate landlords to participate, but then such involvement will be necessary anyway if our city centres are not to become retail wildernesses let alone places where people might live.

DR MALCOLM NIXON

Claines

Local people should rule on planning

SIR – The Conservative government did or did not have Wyre Forest in mind when it declared that certain planning requirements would be ended. I consider, in certain circumstances, it could be OK to help certain applications through Planning, if it radically helped economic development and there had been no serious opposition in pre-report consultation.

But there is a real difference between that and lifting planning requirements almost completely to allow “hostile”

applications to gain full planning permission without going through the process.

For instance, where applications for Fracking are concerned.

This fracking process could change the nature of an environment and community and yet not be subject to local communities supporting the application.

This is too much power to give away! The local planning committee should be sacrosanct, and local plans abided by. Wyre Forest Planning and Worcestershire County Council Planning Services and Committees run very well. To introduce a “short cut system” could undermine the whole planning process.

I would hate to think that “big companies” could almost buy their way into planning – house building or economic development. Due process is the product of decades of planning law, custom and practice.

I chaired the planning committee at County Hall when we threw out the proposed Incinerator for the sugar beet site, now Silverwood’s Housing and Leisure Centre area.

If new laws had then been in place, we would have an Incinerator instead of a Leisure Centre.

We also defeated an appeal by the incinerator company. I still have an application for action against this 2000 proposal with the European Parliament. We need to look at all aspects of panning applications, including terms and conditions, health and safety and finance. To give away any public rights is not something we should permit.

COUNCILLOR NIGEL

KNOWLES

Protect the rights in Magna Carta

SIR – I recently attended a debate held in Worcester, by the Freedom Association.

The topic was the Magna Carta and it’s clear it’s as relevant now as it was 800y ago. Its principles underpin our legal system and those of much of the Commonwealth.

An unashamed United States even used it as a template for their fledgling democracy, after our ‘disagreement’. Our cousins in the ‘Land of the Free’ appear to value its principles more than we.

Magna Carta curtailed the power of the autocratic monster that was King John.

Now, the monster flies a many-starred EU flag. Helped by successive, weak UK Governments, its tentacles erode our rights: The Human Rights Act abused by hatepreachers; the European Arrest Warrant misused; the ‘Snoopers’ Charter’… We watched the EU ignore a democratic referendum in Greece, forcing Greeks to swallow medicine designed to make German Banks feel better. A sovereign nation became a province… Such behaviour belongs in the 1930s.

After WW2, we never needed the ‘arm around the shoulder’ of collective, rather than individual, responsibility, for which broken European nations longed; our democracy had remained intact. Yet, gradually we sleepwalked into a political union whose interests move ever further from ours. Its protectionism is outdated, its economy shrinking, its lack of democracy an affront to Our Magna Carta.

Outside the EU, as a superpower, the world’s 6th largest economy, a worldwide beacon for migrants, we’ll flourish – with a queue of trading partners like India.

Vote No.

O CLEARY

UKIP Worcester

Clothing choices show a lack of respect

SIR – John Phillpott (August 8) expressed his concern about the casual dress seen at a recent wedding.

I was invited to a Royal Navy passing-out parade last month. Despite the clear guidelines from the Navy for smart dress at this formal, and very important event for the recruits, beachwear-type clothing was the chosen form of dress for a significant minority of men. The message seemed to be a thumb on the nose for the Navy and lack of respect for the young people who had just passed a very tough induction programme.

“I can do whatever I want”

is not a good foundation for a healthy society.

DEREK FEARNSIDE

Worcester

Seagulls despoiling what’s left of city...

SIR – During a recent highly enjoyable reunion visit, I was disappointed over the seagulls despoiling Worcester.

Although sharpshooters might be a step too far, surely more humane methods of control are available? In the 1960s the City authorities ruined much of Worcester’s beautiful architectural heritage – their successors surely should save what remains from seagulls?

NEV JOHNSON

Twickenham

... but humans pose a much greater threat

Sir - What a pathetic thing.

Worcester is falling apart, shops shut, traffic hardly moves, parking a problem and what does the council do?

Target seagulls. Before mindless morons call them flying rats, it’s humans that are destroying this planet.

PAUL CHANDLER

Worcester