THE mess that Malvern Hills District Council finds itself in regard to the South Worcestershire Development Plan has its origins in 2010 when the government scrapped Labour's regional spatial strategy and replaced it with a new policy that is, in fact, even more top down.

This was enthusiastically embraced by the council's Tory administration, and the rest as they say is history.

The sweet irony is that if the Government had left well alone we would now have a new local plan in place that required 4,000 fewer home and we could face off the rampaging developers who are putting in speculative developments.

It's been a total shambles.

Clive Smith

Malvern