LIKE your correspondent last week, I have spoken to nobody who is in favour of the proposed improvements to the Market Square. Three months disruption, loss of town centre parking spaces and a chaotic relocation of the market could well be disastrous

LIKE your correspondent last week, I have spoken to nobody who is in favour of the proposed 'improvements' to the Market Square.

Three months' disruption, loss of town centre parking spaces and a chaotic relocation of the market could well be disastrous for local businesses.

I recall that, 20 years ago, proposals to expand the market into King Street were abandoned, after strong objections from the shopkeepers, the highway authority and the emergency services, and the realisation that serious traffic problems would occur as the traders set up their stalls.

Saffron Walden Town Council has been far too hasty in adopting this idea, without any consultation, merely because some money has become available.

I am also disappointed at the involvement of the Saffron Walden Initiative, through the Partnership Board. Many of the members of this body are the very people that I would expect to be actively opposing a proposal to rip up the centre of the town and replace it with something as environmentally insensitive as coloured block paving.

The town council really should drop this clearly unpopular scheme, before the irreversible damage is done. There would be no shame in their listening to people's views on the subject - quite the opposite, in fact.

Common sense suggests that they have made an ill-judged decision, and they would gain respect if they re-considered it.

Steve McDermott, Saffron Walden