COUNCILLOR Clive Cheetham, chairman of Redditch Council's planning committee, advised me to check my facts before sounding off about things" I ought, as a former member of that committee, to know more about (Letters, October 3).

I have said the siting of KFC takeaway on an existing busy car-park was a bad planning decision by the committee, based on short-sighted advice from the officers serving it.

Mr Cheetham implied that because outline planning permission was unanimously approved in February 1996 for the whole site, the matter was virtually closed - not so.

Oddly enough, this approval is designated 95/466 in later council papers, the 95 prefix denoting that year was the actual date of approval, with all other such applications certainly.

'The only applications we have had to deal with lately were those governing advertising,' he tells us. No doubt referring to KFC 2000/189 dated June 21, 2000, when various proposed advertising signs for the site were discussed.

No mention of the more significant application number 2000/161, which dealt with the actual building of the takeaway premises, dated June 6, 2000. This meeting received the various reports from its officers, the Highway Authority and the West Mercia Constabulary, Severn Trent Water and Environmental Health, et al.

The Highway Authority, having presumably consulted the residents of those nearby streets which were likely to be affected by a considerable influx of new traffic, and drawn on its wide experience of traffic management, gave its opinion that: 'The proposal would have no adverse effect on the highway and therefore has no objection to planning permission being granted,' in a letter dated June 6, 2000, ref no DP/12/40/001A.

The only touch of humanity or concern I have come across in the whole sorry business was a hand-written note attached to her report by a woman police officer: 'This car-park was very busy when I went across to look at the site. Does the reduced car parking space become an issue?'

With the loss of 41 parking spaces to existing businesses and those times of traffic chaos caused by failure by the site to absorb the increased volume of traffic, I rather think it does.

Maurice Clarke

Mason Close

Headless Cross