Sirs
With reference to Marlborough College’s plans to develop land at College Fields and Barton Park:
It’s significant that Crown Estates have been drawn into the growing controversy surrounding Marlborough College’s get-rich-quick scheme. (Reported in Marlborough News Online, June 5).
They’re clearly as perplexed as the rest of us about Marlborough College/Wiltshire Council’s clear ambition to start bricking over the fringes of the Marlborough Downs. I must say, it really does look like a shameful money-grab by the College, and demonstrates their disregard for the beautiful setting of our town… and what are Wiltshire Council thinking of?
This large swathe of land should be built on only as a measure of last resort, and we’re nowhere near a last resort situation. The College, of course, is well aware of this, which is why they’re dangling the carrot of a new school – probably ‘on the cheap’.
I urge all who care about Marlborough, but who may be unfamiliar with the piece of land in question, to go and take a look for themselves and see just what is at stake here. It’s huge, and if it’s lost it will be lost forever.
John Clark,
Marlborough.