The future of Sidmouth

SIR - As someone who loves Sidmouth just the way it is and visits as often as possible, I can no longer put off writing about EDDC’s future plans for housing and industry in the town and surrounding areas.

I’ve been reading the Sidmouth Herald’s letters pages and various articles on the subject with increasing dismay over the past few weeks. Does EDDC want Sidmouth and East Devon to become like the area I live in (Smethwick, West Midlands) where urban sprawl and industrialisation from the Black Country and Birmingham have destroyed a pleasant area once comprised of small villages, farms and heathland?

Of course, with an ever-increasing population, “development” does have to happen somewhere in the country. However, it’s only knowing that pleasant towns, villages and countryside still exist in areas like Devon, that people living in large urban areas survive without going mad!

So, come on everyone living in East Devon - unless you want urbanisation and industrialisation to creep up on you until your whole way of life is changed forever, express your views to those you elected to look after your area.

Ensure that they have YOUR interests at heart, not just their own.

Kind regards and with hopes for sensitive future developments.

Olive Jones

The Oval, Smethwick

West Midlands