I AM writing to add my voice to the criticism of Herefordshire Council’s recent and future plans concerning the future of the city.

I realise that the council finds itself bound into the cash drain that is the Edgar Street Grid, which I think will split the city and make more of it into the ghost town that Widemarsh Street has become, but plans to sell off Merton Meadow, in part or whole, for housing seems short-sighted and immoral.

The area still floods, despite the expensive relief plans, and if the last couple of years have taught us anything it is not to build on a flood plain. I wonder if future purchasers or tenants will be able to get insurance on their new homes.

More importantly for the city, removing the largest car park, used by many people who work in town, is another deterrent to visitors.

All the talk about planning different ways of access is so much hot air. It would be different if some form of park and ride was planned but I have heard nothing of this.

Hereford must be the only city in the area with no park-andride, and it should not surprise us if customers take their trade to Gloucester or Shrewsbury, or one of the smaller county towns, adding ever more to the decline of the city.

The current planned traffic chaos will also put off visitors, and once people lose the habit of coming to Hereford they will not come back.

The most stupid and shortsighted cost cutting scheme must be the closure of the lavatories. To arrive in Hereford after a long journey and to find no loos within a half mile walk is basically wrong.

Surely it is the duty of the council to provide lavatory facilities? A large percentage of ageing men have prostate cancer problems and when they need to go the need is urgent. To expect them to walk from Merton Meadow to the Courtyard Theatre or to a small cafe in Widemarsh Street is cruel and immoral.

I don’t want my city to be famous for being the place where you have to urinate in the street. Is there no way a petition can be started to keep the existing toilets, however unpleasant, open until replacements can be funded?

I believe the new ridiculous Hereford city signs should be adapted to read: “HEREford You Can’t Park” and “HEREford You Can’t Pee”.

ALLAN LLOYD, Norton Wood, Norton Canon, Herefordshire