I WONDER if I was the only candidate in yesterday’s local elections who is firmly against any kind of new stadium at Booker – but who could be FOR the idea of a community stadium IF it were genuinely people and eco-friendly, and also, crucially – if it were located ON the existing national rail grid, e.g. just along the Chiltern line (up or down) from High Wycombe?

Imagine a sensible low-running-cost community asset being built adjacent to a (new) halt on the railway line? Like Wembley Stadium is?

This would enhance post-cheap-oil-era community travel – and post-match celebration options too! Rail travel is undoubtedly part of the reason the Millennium stadium is so successful – opposite Cardiff’s Mainline Rail and Coach Station – and why it will continue to be so – for hundreds of years. Travel is by far the biggest eco impact of a stadium, over its entire lifetime, so it will pay us all to get it right.

If we the people genuinely decide we need a local stadium, then let’s make sure it will be affordable and convenient to travel there, en masse, and continue being so – onwards and into the long term. A heritage stadium, built to last, of which we could all be proud.

David Hampton, Green Party candidate for Marlow Town Council and Wycombe District Council – Marlow South and East ward