THE Hereford Times’ article on S & A Group’s proposed new development at Arrow Fisheries (April 24) commented on the relatively few objections thus far made by local residents. That may be because relatively few of us were aware of these proposals until reading your article! After reading it, I asked Herefordshire Council who I should contact if I wished to make my views as a council tax payer known. I was told: “You can’t - the period of consultation is over”. Eh? What period of consultation. When and where did the council make known to its electors that a matter of such serious import to the people of North Herefordshire required their input? It’s been difficult to find transparency about this whole business. I challenge your readers to go to the website of the council’s planning department (they have already recommended acceptance of S&A’s application, by the way) and easily find any information on it. Try their helpful on-site search engine. Type in Arrow Fisheries - nothing. Type S & A Davies or “S & A Group or Leominster Fisheries - absolutely nothing. So I popped into the council offices in Corn Square, Leominster, for help. The very nice lady there (who had also just read about it in the Hereford Times) had absolutely no better luck than me and gave up. And mind - she works for the council and was searching on the council’s own computer… When eventually a more senior official responded to my stubbornness and found me the planning application number, I finally managed to read it. Among many very disturbing things I read, I will quote only one to your readers. S&A propose to build - and I use the words of their own submission exactly - “313 accommodation pods, which are metal containers. The accommodation pods have the character of lorry/shipping containers”. When there is an intent, in the 21st century, to house more than 1,000 human beings in metal shipping containers for months on end, then maybe it’s not so surprising some folk don’t want us to know too much about it, James Miller, Bargates, Leominster.

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