WHILE it is encouraging to see that residents’ concerns were properly taken into account by the Malvern Hills District Council's southern area development management committee in turning down Cala Homes' bid to build on land in Malvern Wells and in so doing violate an area of outstanding natural beauty (Gazette, April 24), it cannot make up for the whole council’s lamentable record over recent years in developing the notorious South Worcestershire Development Plan (SWDP).

Yes, we need more homes, especially affordable ones, that is generally agreed.

However, they should be built in the right places and on a scale which does not turn the Malvern countryside into a sprawling suburbia.

As we approach the local and national elections, it should not be forgotten that in 2012 a group of district councillors led by John Raine produced an alternative and more imaginative development plan to that favoured by the the controlling Conservative group and, no doubt, the developers.

Instead of ill-considered large-scale developments, it proposed a more organic approach, with the emphasis on “diverse, human-scale and community-orientated development, rather than monotonous and stereotypical enormous estates.”

Predictably, perhaps, and exemplifying the controlling Conservative group’s practice of whipping obedient councillors into submission, the careful, thoughtful alternative "Review of the SWDP as it affects Malvern Hills District” did not get very far and, as a consequence, Malvern looks set to become the developers’ paradise that our so-called representatives have agreed to.

Instead of independent, thinking councillors with minds of their own, Malvern has had a council in which the majority nod through business according to the party line.

As we have seen recently in the case of Councillor Paul Tuthill, councillors who have the democratic audacity to disobey the whip and represent their constituents are banished in this one-party state.

The electorate deserves true representatives who speak up in meetings and do not merely nod, representatives who have minds of their own and are not constrained in any way, whether politically or by having financial interests that could affect their views and votes.

It is regrettable, therefore, that the electors of Powick ward have a Conservative candidate who has said that, because she has a pecuniary interest in relation to the proposed massive Newland development, she will abstain from participation in relevant discussion and votes.

This entirely misses the point, in spite of the apparent appropriateness and honesty of such a position. We need representatives who voice the interests and concerns of their electorate without fear or favour, councillors who will not be whipped into submission or remain mute, particularly in relation to one of the most controversial parts of the SWDP.

Our experience of the present cosy Conservative “family" which seems set to become even more of a family affair in the future, as Stephen Chapman demonstrated (Letters, April 24), makes it imperative that we have as many councillors as possible like those who had the political courage to stand out against planning dictatorship in 2012.

Dr Eric H Jones

Guarlford