SIR: You are regularly publishing articles and letters expressing opinions about how the Central Winchester Regeneration Project should be driven forward. The city council continues to pay large sums to consultants yet we still seem a long way off understanding what will actually happen in this run-down section of the city.

Having been a member of Cabinet back in 2014 when the Henderson scheme was live, I strongly supported their proposals. With the lengthening passage of time since that scheme was derailed, I feel more convinced that the council should have persevered with its legal challenge of the procurement route.

At the time we were told by the Winchester Deserves Better brigade that a re-think could be done quickly with little more than a two-year delay to the re-generation of the area. Like much of what this group said, this turned out to be completely false.

I have argued strongly that the Friarsgate Medical Centre could be re-developed immediately. A scheme with the adjoining land owner St John’s could come forward very quickly for additional almshouse accommodation alongside high quality apartments for downsizers. This would kickstart the whole regeneration project and could deliver an exemplar development in a very prominent location.

In Winchester we seem to believe that consultation is an end in itself rather than a means to an end and so I feel strongly that we must lance the boil of Silver Hill and get on and do something constructive here very quickly or yet more public money will be wasted.

Ian Tait,

St James Lane,

Winchester