THOUGH it’s encouraging to see Christchurch is thriving, viz the Saxon Square and Travelodge Hotel developments, there’s no excuse for further diminishing the elements of the town that make it worth visiting and living in. To protect and preserve the town's character some degree of discernment is needed – not just looking at the colour of developers’ money.

The Cornfactor development is an horrendous overdevelopment of 26 flats in the heart of the town and is aesthetically totally base. Any development should preserve the exterior of the old building and be in some sort of scale to the environs.

I now learn that 10 mature trees will also have to be felled from the Druitt Gardens. I’m aware that the council think the new gardens are a real improvement, but in reality the wild woodland reserve bequeathed to the townspeople by the Druitt family has been decimated in favour of a bland walkthrough with a few pretentious bits of nonsense. This hideous new development and proposed loss of further irreplaceable mature trees will further degrade the bequest for future generations.

Councillors should do the right thing and block this profit-driven crass vandalism of the town’s priceless assets and send the developer packing.

DAVID O’SULLIVAN, Friend of Druitt Hall, Bargates, Christchurch