SIR,

I don't wish to trespass on your patience, but I think a response to last week's somewhat ingenuous letter from the HMSG Bursar is needed.

It is true that the initial application from HMSG last summer to turn the front gardens of numbers one and three The Gardens into a school car park included parking spaces close in front of the house at No 5, but the school had already agreed to remove these spaces from the plan before it was considered by MCC Planning Committee, so in effect this is exactly the same application as the one which was rejected in the summer.

Secondly, although the bursar says that the scheme has "been agreed in consultation with the immediate neighbours who have sent letters of support to MCC", it is not at all clear which "immediate neighbours" these might be, since the neighbours most immediately affected have objected, and indeed the MCC online case file for this application shows 15 objections, quite separately from the petition signed by almost all residents of The Gardens last time around, and the many individual objections then.

The single comment in support seems to have been written by the mysteriously anonymous correspondent in last week's Beacon who was amazed that any resident could "berate" one of Monmouth's major employers, though it seems that he/she was primarily concerned about cars parking along the Hereford Road.

He/she was quite wrong to say that residents appear unconcerned about new houses being built on gardens in The Gardens, since none of the people who have sold land for these properties actually live in The Gardens.

Nevertheless, residents of both The Gardens and Dixton Close have shown a great deal of unhappiness recently about such development in the area, as witnessed by the many letters to the Beacon.

It seems that Monmouth residents are losing control over what is happening to the areas they live in, as their surroundings are changed by stealth.

We employ professional planners to control these things on our behalf. What is going wrong?

I ask not because I'm directly affected – I'm not – but because our town seems to be under attack and we shouldn't just roll over.

Phil Bly

(Monmouth)