I write in response to the dire threats made by councillor Shaw (Hereford Times, 16/05/19) that the county’s villages will have to suffer more house building if the dubious western bypass does not proceed. This is presumably ‘if we peasants do not touch our forelocks, and toe the party line’ so to speak.

Many people are opposed to the western bypass, particularly those poor people whose houses, and the homes and memories they have made within them, would be demolished.

Many people also do not want the villages and hamlets of Herefordshire to become surrounded by modern development. ‘Come and see our modern housing developments - look they are everywhere’ is not a slogan that will encourage visitors to Herefordshire, whereas ‘come and see the rolling countryside, the iconic villages, the black and white houses, the historic castles and mansions’, is much more welcoming. Herefordshire needs to encourage more tourists, and to enhance the quality of their experience whilst here.

We have a beautiful and quintessential county, and are in danger of destroying it with indiscriminate building of modern dwellings. Development, and evolution should indeed continue, but, in the wider countryside, sparingly, harmoniously, and in the prevailing style, thus forming a seamless adjoining of today with all our yesterdays.

On the one hand we are proud of the beautiful countryside, the black and white trail, the iconic villages and hamlets, and on the other hand we are in danger of ruining this image with modern housing development.

Many people would like to protect the shire so that tourists, our children and their descendants, can enjoy in their turn, the chocolate box countryside of which the county is rightly proud.

David Oram

Holme Marsh