Sir, - I find myself in the rare situation of supporting, and extending, Coun Dave Walsh's criticism of the Teesside Development Corporation (D&S letters, Mar 8).
In its earliest days, when the TDC bosses first adopted - without asking the owners - the misnomer Teesdale for their flagship site in Thornaby, they said it would set new standards for clean, innovative sustainable transport within the site. What we finally got was lots of car parks.
The TDC actually did very little to clean up the waste land - what it did was a cosmetic job, achieved by shifting contaminated soils around Teesside, some of it straight into Middlesbrough Dock.
They were contemptuous of the overwhelming local opposition when they authorised construction of a cable-ski complex at the quiet unspoiled river meadows around the Holmes in Thornaby, .
Their Teesside Retail Park turned the area between Stockton and Middlesbrough into an ugly landscape without individuality, indistinguishable from a hundred other urban fringes, at the same time creating congestion, excluding non-car owners, and threatening the viability of the existing town centres.
You may wonder, too, why the TDC never got the Middlehaven development started.
When I spoke with one of their senior staff at the time, I realised why. Their car-centric vision could only see the need for costly road interchanges to provide access - and hence the need for a supermarket to provide the finance through its tills.
When we mentioned the railway that passes through the site, it emerged that our contact did not even know where it went! To him, it was a nothing more than a barrier to be bridged.
These fundamental mistakes have no obvious link with the shady business practices that the Audit Commission has uncovered.
We have long felt that the TDC's cavalier dismissal of local opinion and environmental ambition was damning enough.
There is a warning in all this. The TDC may be gone, but many other quangos and appointees are taking over the tasks that were once entrusted to our elected authorities. Sweeping changes in planning law, if they go through, are going to take many more decisions out of local hands.
A new nuclear power station at Hartlepool? A new Heathrow at Middleton St George? A motorway up Wensleydale? "Sorry, it's nothing to do with you, pet! Trust us!"
PETER GOODWIN
Teesside Green Party,
Church Howle Crescent,
Marske-by-the-Sea.
Woefully wrong
Sir, - I believe the comments about the proposed new doctors' surgery at Aldbrough St John made by Richmondshire planning officer Mr Featherstone (D&S, Mar 8)are woefully wrong.
He statement that it would be intrusive are at odds with a previous decision by his own department.
Mr Featherstone could not have looked behind himself when he visited the site. If he had he would not have failed to notice a large building on the skyline called Crossbury Manor. This building is intrusive to say the least and dominates the view from the village in that direction.
Planning permission was granted by the planning officers under delegated powers without reference to the planning committee. This was despite the specific objection of Aldbrough St John Parish Council.
For Mr Featherstone to now say that the much smaller surgery is intrusive is inconsistent with his own actions in the recent past and shows a lack of judgment on his part.
Mr Featherstone should immediately withdraw his objection or at least own up that he got it wrong with Crossbury Manor.
I wish to point out that Aldbrough St John Parish Council fully supports the development of the new surgery.
Coun T W PLACE
Chairman, Aldbrough St John Parish Council,
The Post Office,
Aldbrough St John.
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