IN your editorial (Opinion, October 7) on the proposed gift of land for the Malvern hospital, you say that although this land is outside the settlement boundary it is "likely to be built on in the longer term".

I am concerned you should make this assumption and that by doing so, you give encouragement to developers who ignore the wishes of the Malvern community.

Every time the district council puts out the latest Local Plan for consultation, it defines the boundary and asks for views on it. Every time, developers make strenuous efforts to get the boundary changed in their favour and every time, after the plan has been finalised to public satisfaction, many of those developers go on trying to get round it.

As a county councillor I have no responsibility for planning, but the people I represent are telling me - often and very emphatically - that they do not want planning regulations broken, on any pretext whatever. They are worried by the possibility of Malvern spreading indefinitely into open countryside; and they certainly do not want development that joins Malvern with Worcester.

They urge the planning authority to stick to its guns and I believe they will hope for your support. The area you mention will only be built on if we, as a community, let it happen.

Jeremy Webb, county councillor, Malvern Trinity Division.