A GLANCE at the weekly planning applications before MHDC shows a steady stream of applications to lop trees and fix fences, walls and gates, which have minimal visual impact.

At the same time a growing tide of alleged road safety improving signs and road markings defaces the highways without any planning attempt to harmonise the style and impact of street furniture on the streetscape in an area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

We all know about the impact of the 'Malvern Millions' on public art, but who controls the proliferation of words and obtrusive signs, traffic lights and railings, and how much do they cost to keep clean and replace?

Two good examples are the new traffic lights on Townsend Way and the Newtown Road junction and the crop of garish road markings at other locations. Traffic lights are not the only way to manage busy junctions. The mini-roundabout at the end of Upton Bridge has been a great success with showground traffic no longer snarled up on show days. One should be installed at the Worcester Road/Howsell Road junction by Brooklyn Ford.

Introducing chicanes and 'pinch' points can make roads more dangerous. Extending speed limits across the county also adds a forest of street litter in rural areas.

Drivers get confused when a speed limit jumps from 30 to 40 then back to 30 in half a mile, and another 10 signs are added to the cleaner's and painter's workload at our expense.

Drivers are not fools, and will respect speed limits that make sense, but deliberately reducing the safety margin for the inattentive driver by narrowing junctions and extending unlit kerbs into the highway causes accidents at night and in bad weather.

A good way to improve new traffic schemes would be to make them provisional for a year and subject to safety review with public participation rather than leaving it to the 'experts' alone.

At the same the planners should insist on the rationalisation of speed limits to reduce the number of signs and wordy signs like 'Road liable to flooding' could be shortened to 'Flooding possible' for those who are terminally unaware of prevailing conditions.

ANTHONY HOPWOOD, Holdfast, Upton-upon-Severn.