AS was reported in the Malvern Gazette (May 16), the planning application for a "one-stop shop" medical centre to be built on a greenfield site partly in, and unquestionable near to, a floodplain appealed to the vast majority of those attending the hastily called public meeting held at Upton Memorial Hall on May 13.

Without doubt, there is strong local support for such a medical centre. This is a tribute to the high esteem in which members of the practice are held. The case that the proposed site is inappropriate and leads to many planning problems failed to convince those present, despite the fact alternative sites exist.

According to the head of development control at MHDC, the application is: a departure from the Development Plan for the area; affecting a public right of way; and affecting the setting of a listed building.

Further reservations concerning the site have been submitted by the Environment Agency (EA). These include flood risk, foul water disposal and the potential for objections to development in an undeveloped area. Additionally, a "Flood Risk Assessment" carried out by the applicants is requested. Only then will the Environment Agency be able to make an informed decision concerning the merits of the application.

In a letter dated May 6, 2003, the Council for the Preservation of Rural England (Malvern District Branch) identified five serious concerns about the application in its submission to the MHDC case planning officer.

While welcoming the application for a new medical centre, the Upton Civic Society has expressed serious reservations concerning the site.

Concerns include damage to the natural environment and the hillside landscape consequent on the extensive excavations involved in cutting an entrance and excavating the hillside to build on a greenfield site.

The site is outside the settlement boundary and is simultaneously both on and near a floodplain. Preserving this visually important hillside landscape and floodplain is important to the town and the area. Once lost, the former will be gone for ever. Losing this site, even to a medical "one-stop shop", can be seen as representing too high an environmental and landscape cost.

If this application is successful, an extensive list of conditions that the applicants will be required to meet have already arisen. Many are directly consequent on the choice of this specific site, rather than the medical centre as such. Others can be anticipated.

The time-consuming and expensive negotiations required to accommodate these conditions within a Section 16 Agreement between the applicants and the MHDC could be significantly reduced by situating the medical centre elsewhere. Despite the applicants' assertions to the contrary, alternative sites exist. Developers characteristically hold, at the very least, one contingency plan in anticipation of successful objections to development on controversial sites such as the present one.

The public meeting was informed that the applicants had been encouraged to move towards a full planning application by MHDC. This can be interpreted as an "amber", if not a "green", light to the applicants. Objections to using this particular site are based on agreed development policies, practices and precedents at national, district and local plan levels. Are none of these considerations of consequence in considering the suitability of this proposed site?

In a powerful planning policy sense, one does not "own" land. In essence, in a democracy we are all collectively stewards of the landscape and environment. In the interests of Upton-upon-Severn and its surrounds, its inhabitants, visitors and future generations of both, we need to be very careful. We must preserve, rather than destroy, the countryside and landscape that gives the town and its surrounds their distinctive complementary characteristics.

In summary, a new medical centre - yes; the proposed site - no.

Peter D. Pumfrey, Newbridge Green, Upton-upon-Severn.