This week's letter from one of our readers...

LAST week’s BFP carried an article about the ex-Chiltern Council offices in King George V Avenue, Amersham being superfluous to Buckinghamshire Council’s requirements.

The article went on to say that the site would be redeveloped for housing over the next 18 months.

The council offices provided a significant amount of employment in Amersham before the imposition of Covid restrictions and the move to WFH and flexible working.

It appears to me that efforts should be made to replace this lost employment in the town by attracting a suitable organisation to develop and occupy the site with highly paid jobs, perhaps in the science or technology fields.

Adequate parking on site and in the multi-storey carpark (currently underused) and the immediately adjacent railway station would be an added attractions to a potential employer using the site.

A hotel is another alternative. The size and position of the site seem to be suitable for the development of a hotel.

It is already known that one or more hotel chains were interested in having a hotel in the area.

Proposals were made recently for one near Chesham Station but there were no suitable sites available to allow this.

A hotel would fit in well with the council’s wish to increase tourism.

In the same BFP issue was an article announcing that Buckinghamshire Council is to develop a new strategy and action plan for the tourism sector ‘to identify new opportunities and to support communities across Buckinghamshire’.

The development of a hotel would offer support to tourism and the community more widely.

It would also provide a number of jobs, both skilled and semiskilled.

This is not to suggest that additional housing is not important as well but that other uses for the site would bring greater benefits to the area than more additional units of housing.

It is surely in the council’s and the local communities’ interests to give more considered attention and debate before deciding on the best future use of this valuable site.

It will be interesting in hearing the views of others on the matter.

Dr John Wells,

Chesham Bois