FOR two years, Wycombe District Council has spent a great deal of time, effort and tax-payers’ money in preparing the Wycombe Development Framework (WDF). In undertaking the task, that is far from finished, the council has acquired a detailed understanding of sites, throughout the length and breadth of the district and allocated them for all sorts of development.

Relocating Adams Park as a comparatively new venture is therefore not included in the Delivery and Site Allocations Update 2010, a document that is the subject of the latest round of consultations.

However producing the documents should have enabled the council to easily identify a shortlist of “sensible” sites rather than 19 – the incredible number listed in last week’s Free Press. Even without the WDF it would and should have been possible to eliminate several sites, especially the Little Marlow Gravel Pits site, since earlier this year a planning inspector had already ruled the site to be inappropriate for a football stadium.

Furthermore, the consultant’s brief for the current Feasibility Study should not have been open ended, it should have been limited to a short list of “sensible” sites to enable a more realistic Feasibility Study to be completed quicker, and at far less cost to the taxpayer.

This saga suggests that WDC has still to demonstrate that it has learnt the lessons it said it would after an independent auditor found a catalogue of shortcomings in the way the council commissioned and then managed consultants to undertake the Marlow Toilet /Café project.

Immediately reducing the list of sites from 19 to a manageable and realistic low number of “sensible” sites would be a first step in the right direction.

However that alone would not address the most important question: should even one more penny piece be spent in these difficult times to help a rich man pursue his sporting interests?

J.D.Burnham,Harwood Road, Marlow