Keep consulting (From Malvern Gazette)

Keep consulting

7:00am Friday 9th November 2012 in Letters

THERE has been plenty of scaremongering by the planners and the leaders of the councils involved with the SWDP, threatening us with planning anarchy if councillors aren’t good little boys and girls and don’t just vote through the plan as it stands.

Much of what they say is totally untrue and misleading. There is no reason why, if properly resourced, a new round of consultations should take more than a few months.

What’s more, even if they do vote through what the unelected planning officers have decided (in consultation with the developers, who appear to already be in charge) we won’t have a new plan in place by the March 2013 deadline anyway, so surely it is better to have the right plan, rather than something which is wrong.

I note the empty threat by Marc Bayliss from Worcester City Council to withdraw from the joint plan, yet still object to any plan from Malvern Hills Distric Council which doesn’t consider the needs of Worcester City – you have to laugh at him shooting himself in the foot.

CHRIS MCSWEENY, Powick