GIVEN the choice, who would you feed to a man-eating plant?

I intended it to be a funny question, but now I come to think of it, I’ve got a serious answer.

I’d choose that despicable American woman bristling with high-powered weaponry who ‘hunted’ a harmless giraffe and then posted pictures of herself grinning beside its pathetic corpse on the internet. Makes you ashamed to be a human being.

Having got that out of the way, I’ll return to the inspiration for my question – a highly enjoyable trip to the Playhouse.

Do, if you get a chance, catch its latest production, the rock musical comedy Little Shop of Horrors.

With a cast of superb singers and a great set dominated by the insatiable aforementioned plant – a brilliant piece of design – it is a memorable night.

Plant life also loomed large at a meeting of the Salisbury Area Greenspace Partnership, which I attended last week.

This praiseworthy organisation is, like so many others, short of cash to carry on its good work, which includes digital mapping of the network of precious green spaces that make our urban environment tolerable.

And a timely task it is, too, as they seem to be disappearing faster than I can write about them.

The latest little plot destined to be uprooted is in the city centre conservation area behind Bedwin Street and Belle Vue Road, close to Wiltshire Council’s own leafy oasis at Bourne Hill.

In its place a developer wants to build one five-bed and three four-bed homes. It’s understandable.

Although residents and the city council are upset – and the Greenspace Partnership has objected in principle to the loss of a garden site dating back to 1751 – planning officers are recommending approval at tonight’s southern area planning committee.

What Salisbury does not have, although many smaller parishes are drafting their own versions as fast as they can, is a Neighbourhood Plan.

Since the city surrendered control over its future to Wiltshire Council, it’s only by drawing up such a plan that residents can hope to exercise the slightest influence on where future development takes place, and what they want by way of infrastructure in return. Even then, nothing’s guaranteed.

It remains an absolute scandal that Salisbury is represented by a city council that has no legal clout when it comes to planning, with only the same status as the humblest parish council in one of our outlying villages.

But does it have to take it lying down?

Last week’s column contained an error which I spotted too late to correct. Potential development alongside Netherhampton Road would fall within Netherhampton parish, not Wilton.

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