SIR – I CAN appreciate why the rejection of plans for a proposed zoo to the rear of the Wyevale Garden Centre (Worcester News, June 2) might appear strange and yes, it is true as Alan Coleman suggested that such a facility would have benefits for the wider community. But the core issue here was not the zoo but its location.

The scheme, had it been granted, would have set a very unwelcome precedent for development in the green belt and it was this crucial and fundamental planning policy which Alan Coleman and the (majority) of the planning committee upheld.

As Councillor Pat Agar recognised: “Far from testing our green belt policy, this would drive a coach and horses through it.” Fortunately, she does recognise that its role is not to protect ‘exceptional’ open spaces – but rather a policy to prevent the merging and coalescence of urban areas and as such is crucial in stopping Fernhill Heath from becoming a fully joined up suburb of Worcester.

So I am sorry Councillor Amos if you find this field “unexceptional” - but even if it were, it is still central to the green belt policy, something which I would have hoped you might recognise.

Perhaps Andy Calvert can find another, acceptable piece of land for his dream – one hopes so.

Dr Malcolm Nixon

Worcester

Time for us to leave EU con

SIR – DO you know what the difference is between the European Council, the Council of the European Union, and the Council of Europe? Did you even know they existed, or what they do? Did you know there are four Presidents in the EU experiment? Can you name even one of them? Do you know how an EU commissioner (they are the ones calling the shots) is selected... or deselected? Have you any idea how the EU parliament works, or even how many EU buildings there are?

If your answers to the above basic questions is ‘no’, then you already know why you should be voting ‘no’ on June 23. If you still don’t, then ask where all that ‘EU money’ comes from, and why there is actually no such thing as ‘EU money’. It is your money, and mine, which is used by the EU to promote itself with its largesse, which includes one in five EU employees, that’s 10,000 bureaucrats, being paid more than the British Prime Minister!

Vote to end this EU con, vote to take our country back.

Will Richards

Malvern

Baltic states need security

SIR – WILL Richards (May 31) states “the only winners are all those east European countries our hard-earned money is bailing out”. And amongst these he is including presumably the Baltic states, both EU and Nato members.

These EU members are being actively undermined by Putin’s expansionist Russia and as I have said before he will do anything to weaken any European institution that stands in his way.

The West is well aware of this. According to The Sunday Times the UK government will announce at a conference in Warsaw this week that a British army battle group of 1,000 men are to be stationed in the Baltic states along with stockpiles of tanks and armour to counter the threat.

To conclude, it is in our vital security interests that the EU and Nato ensure the security of the Baltic states before it is too late. These states are a bulwark against Russian expansionism and to blithely trash them in the way that Will Richards has done is a very dangerous course to take.

Clive Smith

Malvern

Let’s control our own cash

Sir – FINALLY people’s predictions have come true and the maternity unit at the Alex has closed. This has been done without consultation and by people who are not voted in – so the general public have no redress.

The cost of having a midwife-led maternity unit would have cost £1 million per year or 1/50th of what we pay to the EU every day, which is another set of people who are not voted in and are not accountable to the general public in this country.

How can the EU continue to carry on if they cannot agree their accounts because they do not know where the money’s being spent.

Is it not time to take back control of our own finances and spend it on OUR hospitals, OUR schools and OUR houses rather than keep giving money to countries who pay in less but take out more?

We are paying for these countries and their population twice, once with the money they get out of the EU and again when they come to this country for healthcare that their countries do not pay us back for, and then our housing, and child benefits which they send back to their own countries, and we do not seem to be able to check if they have the children they are claiming for.

Kevin Drinkwater

Redditch