The consultants Gillespies presented their initial ideas on their Devizes Masterplan at the Corn Exchange on June 4, at the end of the second month of their five-month assignment for Kennet District Council.

We were not encouraged. Their presentation was ill-prepared and disappointing, and their proposals amateurish and ill-informed.

If they can't do better than this, why don't they just leave us to enjoy Devizes as it is? About a million pounds has just been spent on rearranging the Market Place, and now Messrs Gillespies parachute in with more changes to the Market Place.

The scope of the Masterplan more accurately relates to three car parks (at Station Road, West Central and Tesco's), plus the New Park Street/ Northgate site, and cursory attention to the Wharf and canalside. These latter are included for consultation only, on the scheme left half finished when British Waterways walked off the job.

The choice of sites relates to their ownership by Kennet, and most of them are car parks. What is not coincidental is that developing housing or retail on them means a loss of car parking. Is this a price worth paying?

What was on offer at the Corn Exchange was undistinguished residential and retail sketch plans, plus a "landmark building" storming like a battleship across the Market Place from the One Stop shop. It is hard to know whether to take this seriously, or to see it as a decoy to divert our attention from more sinister proposals.

I tried to review the proposals professionally, but I cannot. They mix the naive with the insensitive, the fashionable with the impractical.

Car parking is sidelined; whole areas closed off to motor cars. New Park Street is narrowed; no mention is made of traffic flow; retailing is increased, but its lifeblood cut off; the trees in Tesco's car park are lost; the Market Place panorama is severed; new housing is everywhere.

Gillespies wants to delete cars from the Market Place, and return it to its 'former glory'. The Market Place is just that, where people bring their goods to sell and others bring cash to buy. They came on horseback, with carts and carriages, and now by car. I despair. Can we have our £80,000 back, please?

We must not let this Masterplan creep into being while our backs are turned. This plan could be seriously damaging, particularly where it threatens our townscape and parking space. Gillespie's says that its preferred proposals will be available for consultation in July. We must hold them to this, and leave them in no doubt over our feelings.

Jeff Ody

Chairman

The Trust for Devizes