Do they know what is going on?

It may have failed to come to their notice and the notice of councillors that land for industrial development in the borough is quickly running out and apart from the site at Shawbirch there is something like only 12 acres left in small patches around Hortonwood.

It is all right to keep building houses on every piece of ground available, even taking industrial land out of use and changing it to housing like what was done at Allscott and the Maxell site, but householders and their families need jobs.

People may have noticed the huge development of houses built at Shifnal. Due to demand, Shropshire are now in the process of re-allocating greenbelt land to accommodate the building of 3,000 extra homes and a huge industrial site near Tong close to Junction 3 of the M54.

Have Telford people and especially councillors realised that when these development go through Telford will become relegated to second place behind Shropshire and industrialists will understandably choose Shropshire first?

The nimbys of Shawbirch all celebrated when Telford Council, because of nimby objections, panicked and got the plans for the Italian tissue factory withdrawn and the Tories, in your newspapers, said that they, if elected, would get the current local plan withdrawn and a new one prepared.

Strange that this promise does not appear in their pamphlet 10 reasons for voting Tory. They know that a new local plan would take at least three years to bring to fruition during which time developers would have free licence to submit applications all over the borough which the council could refuse but they would likely lose at great cost on appeal to the planning inspectorate because without a local plan it favours developers.

It would appear that like the rejected plans to bring many hundreds of jobs and prosperity to Telford that the previous Tory administration did when they refused the offer of a super prison at Allscott and now built at Wrexham is going to be mirrored, as I said it would, with the Italian factory being snapped up by Chester.

Shawbirch people may not like it but there is no greenbelt land within the boundaries of Telford and what building land there is will soon be gobbled up. When that time arrives, which will be sooner rather than later, the open land to the north of Shawbirch will be a prime area to be allocated for development.

Adrian Williams, Bratton

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