LIVING in Marlow which is so very different from the town in which I grew up one is struck by the contrasts of what was created here and what is offered now.

Despite alleged advances in architectural and material knowledge and techniques we seem to suffer fro banal developments characterised by flat red-brick walls, tiny featureless windows, hard rectangles, and the impression that dignity, proportion, detail, and imaginative use of materials is sacrificed to speed of production, purchase and occupation!

Tacky, pic-n-mix offices continue to germinate - and seem to satisfy both cheapjack developers and the district council as needy example of alleged "Town Planning". But nobody questions whether these pustules of sporadic jobbing builders art embellish or diminish the ethos of the town. How many third rate office blocks and over-the-shop flat conversions do we need in the centre in view of the mountains of paperwork, countless meetings, and expensively produced town plans which allegedly are to evolve into the "protection and revitalising of our town centre?"

Every plot of land is grabbed by speculators and, with district council approval, spawns conspicuously ugly, uniform, compartments which are as potentially anti-rural as were Victorian terraces. Garages, it seems, are as essential as indoor toilets, whilst gardens and open spaces seem no longer necessary! Small spaces with a few seats are, if you like, a town's lungs, but it seems that property developers or the council have either commitment or interest in such amenities.

If that seems cynical it maybe, but it is also a true reflection of the absence of any rational, considerate, environmental town evolution in favour of crude, short-term commercial exploitation endorsed invariably by an insensitive authority.

The district council's ideas for the evolution of Marlow are similar to the public transport it endorses ie, if you miss one idea then you have to wait a hell of a long time for the next one!

Is it too much to ask that our district council stops for a moment and realises that their absence of sensible application of their alleged policies is turning Marlow into merely another squalid, depressing, red-brick dormitory where the only vibrant thing seems to be the incessant, exponentially increasing, traffic whilst appropriate amenities for the increasing population seems to be beyond the district council's imagination.

The hideous megalith of the Michael Shanly "development" has put the final mortal touches to the desecration of Chapel Street whilst the warning lit up by the closure of Budgens, the bakers two doors away, and Stead and Simpsons, added to the emergence of a campaign for town centre survival by existing traders should make the district council sit up and take notice. Yet we have no evidence whatsoever of the managerial competence of our councillors.

When I came to Marlow, 30 odd years ago, I could sit in my garden and enjoy the silence. Now I have to endure the perpetual noise from the by-pass and West Street traffic. Is that environmental progress?

Marlow may have been forced on an unwilling Wycombe District Council in 1974 by the government but evidence suggests that Wycombe District Council has just totally ignored its existence.

Evidence suggests that it was a mistaken decision and maybe it is time for rational secession.

Bill Purdie

West Street

Marlow