I WAS among the group of residents invited by the Longford Estate to a ‘consultation’ meeting last week as Longford prepares, alongside the St Nicholas Hospital, to put in a planning application to build on the Britford Lane meadows.

At the meeting I was presented with an array of artistic sketches and cottage-y pictures that were meant to convince me that building on a conservation area, prone to flooding, just a short walk from the cathedral, would somehow be a good idea. Do Longford and their PR team really think the people of Salisbury are so easily fooled?

Their talk of a ‘high quality’, ‘bespoke’ development is all hot-air and will mean nothing if planning permission is granted. Once this land is sold, the developer will come up with their own, very different plans.

Even Longford’s PR team agree the designs their architects have created could have very little bearing upon what is eventually built.

And when it comes to managing the huge increase in traffic from this development – and its impact on New Bridge Road and the surrounding streets – Longford admit they simply have no answer.

Apparently they are just going to leave it to Wiltshire Council to dream up a solution in the years to come. Meanwhile we will all just sit and wait in a traffic jam.

Perhaps most disingenuous of all is Longford’s response to the flooding issue – apparently the construction of a shale and the use of permeable paving is going to solve all our problems.

If only it was that easy! You don’t have to look very far to find countless examples of developers pledging high-tech water management solutions that simply don’t work in practice.

Harnham is a high risk area for flooding, our climate is only going to get wetter and if you tarmac over the fields which currently help protect us, there will be consequences.

No amount of clever surveys and engineering solutions can override the facts.

Longford Estate is clearly hellbent on pushing this development through, and has engaged a full PR team to help achieve that. The Earl of Radnor and the St Nicholas Hospital show no regard for the views of the people of Salisbury – so many of whom have expressed their clear and total opposition to this development. As residents, we can only continue to fight these proposals, stand up to the Longford PR machine, and hope that at the end of the day, money and influence do not win out.

EMILY GRIFFITHS Britford Lane, Salisbury