SIR - I was amazed to read in the Herald (January 27, 2012) that the Sidmouth Garden Centre has once again been refused planning permission for an environmentally low impact, single-story vets clinic building in their grounds.
From all accounts, their lack of success in gaining permission is due to such a building being ‘detrimental to the AONB’.
How I laughed and what a joke? I really fail to understand, therefore, why it is perfectly acceptable to throw up several hundred houses over the road, on land also in the AONB, and for Devon County Council to plan to build a new school and a recycling centre in fields adjoining the garden centre.
More than ever, Sidmouth needs to have an accessible vet’s clinic that has the luxury of parking and is also located next to this huge, new housing estate.
The current site of the clinic is totally unsuitable, with visitors having to carry their pets some distance due to a lack of parking and also risking fairly dangerous pedestrian access.
It’s planning mumbo jumbo gone mad - please get a grip!
Rachel Perram
Convent Road, Sidmouth
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