IT'S a creeping tide of naff urbanisation.

South of Lancaster the same schemes keep coming back again and again - Whinney Carr, university expansion, Bailrigg Science Park, and the Western Bypass.

It's 'Salami Slicing'.

The council / developers / "Forces of Mordor" (ie those people who put cut down trees upside down in pots as a Satanic parody of nature) first play one tune for a bit, give up and then play another.

It's also a war of attrition.

The schemes interlock.

If the university build their extra access road, or Whinney Carr etc gets built then traffic problems will be horrendous and so they will have to build a bypass.

On the other hand, if the by-pass is built the whole lot follows as a matter of course.

I propose that instead of fighting each proposal in an ad hoc way when it crops up, we set up a broader alliance of all the different groups, with the purpose of opposing all developments south of Lancaster.

This group would operate permanently.

We need to campaign to get this increasingly threatened area of countryside declared completely off-limits to development.

Then, instead of just one isolated group opposing each scheme, at once the full weight of everybody would be brought in.

This alliance should also stand in council elections.

I think we all have an interest in protecting this scenery, and not just the little bit in each of our own back yards.

The south part of the Lancaster area is fertile countryside, and should stay that way.

Stephen Booth

Ash Avenue

Galgate