BROWS will be furrowed among many St Peter's residents until next Tuesday - and maybe beyond - if the saga of a parcel of land continues as it has gone so far.

The parish council sees massive differences between what it wants built on the land, and what it claims the city council thinks the people of the estate want.

It's probably best regarded as the growing pains of a vital corner of Worcester than what it appears to be - two bodies at loggerheads. But this is what it amounts to.

The city wants to replace a play area with a community centre, then build a church and affordable housing on adjoining land. Parish members would like a bigger community centre, sheltered housing, but no church. The key word is community.

It's less than a year since parish council clerk Bob Jenkins came to the defence of teenagers who were loitering on street corners, smoking.

He reckoned they should be given the benefit of the doubt, certain that their elders should do something to help before condemning them as potential trouble-makers.

We agreed, headlining the We Say column "You only take out what you put in" on the day in question.

Though affordable housing provision's unarguably important to Worcester as a whole, we believe it's wrong of the city council to try to kill two or three birds with one stone.

We hope the parish council sticks to its guns and insists that the needs of the estate as a whole are reflected in a community centre of an appropriate size.

We'd be surprised if that weren't the outcome, once comments from a consultation exercise next Tuesday are sifted.

Then we can look forward to the moment when the saga's over and the estate can continue its slow evolution from a landscape of empty fields to a proper community within a community.