I was interested to read the comments by councillors Ken Meech and Lorna Jenkin on the possible future use of the Strawberry Field site, as reported in last week's Lyme News.

Ken Meech is apparently now urging fellow councillors towards a 'more sensible' solution to the problem of what to do with this controversial site.

That sounds quite promising until one remembers how ill-judged and even absurd the previous proposals were that he so strongly advocated for this site through his membership of the Strawberry Field sub-committee.

Surely, almost anything would be more sensible than those proposals! He is reported as saying 'there is no problem playing football up there...’ On the contrary, of course there are 'problems'. It remains a very prominent and sensitive site, in the Dorset Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, outside the town's Defined Development Boundary etc.

It is also quite sloping which means that considerable earth moving and reshaping of the natural landscape would obviously be needed to provide an acceptable playing surface.

Another problem, as even councillor Meech seems to accept, is 'what you put up there to sustain it'. _

The site is an inconvenient distance from the football club's existing facilities at the Davey Fort ground.

Would the club live with that situation? Could they afford to? I doubt it. Sooner or later they would press for changing and/or bar facilities at the Strawberry Field site.

With regard to Lorna Jenkin's reported comment, it must be welcome news that there could be collaboration between the town council and Woodroffe School on the provision of additional sporting facilities.

It seems a pity, however, if that collaboration were to focus on the controversial Strawberry Field, approximately two kilometres (well over a mile) from the school, rather than on one of the more level fields much closer to the school at the western edge of the town.

DAVID SOLE

Home Farm, Lyme Road, Hunters Lodge