SIR - Your front-page story "10,000 homes on city's green belt"
(June 7) must ring alarm bells for anyone concerned with Worcester's future, and your editorial headlined "A greenfield armageddon is looming" takes exactly the right line.
While no one doubts the need for new homes, especially affordable ones, you are right to "not accept that development on this scale is necessary". Not only is the scale completely wrong, but the Green Party believes that the proposed sites are in the wrong place entirely.
The green edges of Worcester will be lost forever as the city links up with Kempsey in the south and Droitwich (and eventually Birmingham?) in the north. Who on earth has come up with these sites, rather than looking at brownfield development?
Consultation by the local authority on housing and other developments should be proactive, to discover what the community needs. New housing should be planned for on the basis of independent housing needs surveys.
Commercial house builders and their representatives should not be involved in the process of identifying potential sites or assessing housing needs on behalf of the local community. Yet where did these proposals come from - "independent" consultants?
Worcester Green Party wants to see a referendum on these proposals. That will make the planning process democratic and transparent. No one believes the claim from the county council that "nothing has been decided yet". Well done, Worcester News, for your tough stance.
CHRIS LENNARD,
Spokesman, Worcester Green Party.
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