SINCE the beginning of the new housing development at Riverdown Park the residents of Bishopdown Farm have been promised a country park to ‘pacify’ local feelings about this new development.

However it now appears that the so called country park is rapidly becoming an environmental disaster as the developers dump hundreds of tons of infertile chalk over perfectly good fertile soil where the country park is supposed to be.

This dump has slowly encroached further and further up the hill behind Bishopdown farm over the weeks since the development started and just this week has crept yet another 100m up the hill. No attempt has been made to remove the perfectly good soil first, just dump the waste chalk over the top. The landscape now resembles more of a ‘lunar’ landscape than chalk down countryside.

Are these developers really allowed to destroy perfectly good land meant to have been preserved both as a sanctuary for wildlife as well as to be enjoyed by residents ? Did Wiltshire and Salisbury county councils really give planning permission for this wanton ecological destruction?

Or have they, as seems to be the case with local policy recently, allowed developers a free rein to destroy whatever land they like in their continued search for quick turnover and maximum profits irrespective of the damage they are doing to the environment and local surroundings?

ROGER FOGGITT

Bishopdown Farm