I WRITE concerning the suggestion, apparently serious, that cable cars should run from the town to the top of the Worcestershire Beacon.

A couple of years ago I and a friend completed the Malvern Midsummer Marathon - a challenge walk that includes the length of the hills and goes out into Herefordshire to Cradley, over Oyster Hill into Ledbury and them the ridge of Coneygree Woods.

We finished in the company of an American and during the simple meal at the end of the event I asked him what he thought of the landscape he had passed through. He came from Seattle, an area not devoid of its own scenic delights. He said "It must be some of the finest landscape in the country - or anywhere."

Maybe it takes a stranger to the area to see properly what we have become accustomed to: we have here something very rare, very fine and quintessentially English.

Should we sacrifice it to the current crop of shopkeepers and a few self-serving local politicians? OK, why shouldn't Malvern be amongst other things, a pleasant retail experience. But please, not at the risk of a deeper experience of sublime beauty of landscape.

CHARLES EDEN Madresfield