PLANNING permission for the redevelopment of Kidderminster College site, Hoo Road, for housing, included a condition that the hedge along Hoo Road be kept, except where it conflicted with the obvious need for the new highway access.

It seemed to local residents a discreet development would take place behind and below the tall and luxuriant barrier of trees and hedging atop the embankment.

However, once the developers were on site, trees and hedging were felled, and despite this being reported to the council's enforcement officers and councillors, felling continued, as did excavation of the embankment.

The final insult occurred on Friday, May 16, when at 3pm I witnessed the last of the hedge being completely cleared.

The developers claim it has been necessary to clear the hedge at the insistence of the Health and Safety Executive, as the bank is now unstable. Such instability however, is clearly as a result of the developer's action.

Mr Needham, the council's trees and forestry officer, commented that in his professional experience it was "very difficult to protect a hedgerow by use of a planning condition".

This begs the question: "Why did Mr Parker, the then district council's development control manager, and subsequently appointed to the post of Director of Planning, Environment and Health, recommend the use of just such a planning condition as an appropriate means of protecting the hedge?"

I am sure there are those among local residents who feel the district council have, at best, been nave, and at worst negligent. Indeed, there could well be a case worthy of examination by the Local Government Ombudsman.

It is not that many weeks since the Shuttle Times & News reported a resident had been fined £1,000 for felling two trees.

I appreciate the law is complicated on such issues, but natural justice does not appear to be done when a developer can destroy numerous trees and an extensive mature hedgerow and yet not even be threatened with legal action.

D COLLINS

Aggborough Crescent, Kidderminster