Re Councillor Jeff Hill's “Us Councillors Could Not Do More” account of the recent failure to halt St Modwen development plans for Coombeswood.

The councillor misunderstands. The issue is not what the councillors did for the objection campaign. It is rather the details of what they failed to do.

To briefly explain the background: in December 2000 Barratt Homes made an application to build in Coombeswood Green Wedge.

But “visible over a wide distance” and “detrimental to the quality and character of the landscape”, the proposal was ruled contrary to the Wedge's Landscape Heritage Area status. It was therefore refused permission.

And therefore in 2009 the same status clearly represented the single strongest planning objection to the large scale intrusive St Modwen plans for the same Landscape Heritage Area.

So how did the councillors publicly supporting the objection campaign actually advance the argument established by planning precedent as the single most powerful available to them – the HE2 Landscape Heritage Area argument?

Councillor Lesley Faulkner's formal objection letter of September 26, cllr Jeff Hill's letter of October 10, cllr Karen Shakespeare's letter of October 11 and also cllr Jeff Hill's five minute March 16 speech to the planning committee all took the same approach.

Curiously, neither letters nor speech contained even a single lone mention between them of the Wedge's HE2 Landscape Heritage Area status anywhere.

And the solution to The Mystery Of The Missing Landscape Heritage Area? Perhaps the councillors' simply forgot to mention the strongest argument of the objection cause they apparently wrote and spoke in support of, an incredible and unfortunate oversight? The odds against such a coincidence demand a closer look at the evidence:- Cllr Faulkner's remarkably thorough objection letter dealt with the full comprehensive list of all Coombeswood planning statuses, SO1 Green Belt, Nature Reserves NC4, Nature Reserves NC5... except one. Still more remarkable is that the single conspicuous exception happened to be the HE2 Landscape Heritage Area status established by planning precedent as the strongest planning objection of all.

Cllr Shakespeare's letter not only contained the same comprehensive list of statuses with the same notable exception as cllr Faulkners; it also referred to her own personal involvement in the 2000 Barratt protest. Incredibly, she still failed in spite of this to refer even once to the HE2 Landscape Heritage Area status solely responsible for the Barratt campaign's success.

Finally, stating in his letter “I stand 100% behind the objectors to the proposals, and will continue to fight against the plans”, cllr Hill should have been delighted to be in a position to deliver the single most effective objection argument in the most important speech of the campaign. Instead neither speech nor letter contained any reference to the HE2 Landscape Heritage Area policy.

How strange and disappointing when over 150 Halesowen residents took the time and trouble to specifically mention the HE2 Landscape Heritage Area argument in their objection letters, as did organisations including CPRE, Halesowen Abbey Trust and the Monarch's Way Association.

Now I, and I am sure many other disappointed objectors too, look forward to an explanation of the curious absence of the single strongest planning objection from all of the Halesowen North Councillor's representations on this matter.

Simon Roberts, Halesowen