BRIAN Tannatt-Nash seems worried (Hereford Times, May 31) by the legal challenge to Herefordshire Council's decision to fund the Rotherwas road with money from a housing developer.

He is right to be worried. Developer funding is supposedly only allowable for projects of direct benefit to that development. Rotherwas Access Road has no benefit to the Bullinghope development.

Mr Tannatt-Nash questions coun Dawe's mandate in opposing the road, due to low turnout, yet claims the Tories have a mandate for a massive housing and road building programme on the same low turnout! He cannot have it both ways.

His figures on business support for the road are questionable. My understanding is that less than half of businesses even responded, which is hardly a ringing endorsement.

Alternatives to improve access to Rotherwas - lowering the road under the bridge, a route closer to the railway line, a rail spur - have not been seriously considered and many businesses would support these.

Supporters of this cul-de-sac continually fail to answer the point made by the planning inspector that, with better connected industrial estates in Leominster and Moreton half empty, it is crazy to risk council finances on expanding Rotherwas.

Herefordshire has very little unemployment but we do have low wages. We should support the businesses we have, but focus in future on development that is less road dependent and pays higher wages.

My understanding is that a legal action could only be brought once the council had officially adopted the Unitary Development Plan, which was at the end of March, 2007, in a specific six week period. It therefore seems unfair, again, to moan that those questioning council strategy this way should have done it differently.

Mr Tannatt-Nash is worried about the cost of the challenge. But, if the council has done nothing wrong, there is nothing to worry about, is there? To compare a few thousand pounds of legal fees against the £12 - 20 million this road is costing us is ridiculous. These projects often cost more than budgeted and I suspect this one will too. It will be us council tax payers who will make up the errors in Tory sums, not Rotherwas businesses.

It will be us who have to sit in even more traffic gridlock and have to cope with ever more unimaginative urban sprawl. It is the Conservatives, not the protesters, who should face the wrath of Hereford's voters.

It is also hard to believe that a party which a few short weeks ago said tackling climate change was a huge priority is proudly turning Herefordshire's proud countryside into concrete and encouraging more traffic growth and carbon emissions with its short sighted and outdated '60s style policies.

Rob Hattersley, Herefordshire Green Party.