FRANCES Beatty, regional director of the County Land & Business Association, according to a report by Robert Hale on January 4, 2002, (Malvern Gazette) believes I and my colleagues on Malvern Hills District Council planning committees are incapable of understanding the economic and environmental benefits offered by planning applications.

MHDC does support business development in rural areas and the creation of more jobs, but that does not mean allowing inappropriate development to take place.

Before making any decision councillors are advised by officers from the planning department, the economic development department, the environmental department and the Highways Partnership. They consider representations made by parish and town councils, by members of the public and, on many occasions, other interested organisations.

If applicants believe we have made the wrong decision, they are able to appeal to the Secretary of State. Occasionally the decision of the district council is reversed.

I can assure the CLA, councillors do not need compulsory training. We are, in the main, people in our late middle age and upwards, with a wide experience of life, having worked in a variety of occupations and are thus, with the professional advice we receive, well able to assess the merits or otherwise of planning applications.

It would be of interest to know the failure of which particular planning application has caused so much concern to the CLA.

COUN ALEC WALL, Bank Street, Stoke Bliss, Tenbury Wells.