Posted by Michael Grassi, Kidderminster: My suggestions: 1. Comberton Hill - Town gateway' Remove the Comberton Hill island and replace it with a flyover, giving direct access from Comberton Hill to the town (with the ringroad going underneath) and link the station to the town hall with a tram (San Francisco style!) 2. Make Tesco create a new access across the canal from Park Lane and pedestrianise the area from the Tesco petrol station right up to the town hall, including the existing bus station (see point 4) thus creating an open green space behind the college, library and bus station, using the river frontage to its full potential.

3. Move the wood yard from Park Lane to the old sugar beet site. Use this area on Park Lane for a car park, with a pedestrian bridge across the canal to Weavers Wharf.

4. Move the bus station to where Prospect Lane car park is now, and provide a funicular railway and covered escalators down to Worcester Street, joining up a disjointed town and giving businesses in the top half of town a chance to survive the seemingly indiscriminate planning regime.

5. Turn the sugar beet towers into the biggest green' composters in the country (if not the world!) using any gases created to power the site. As an incentive, compost could be offered at say 50p a bag when at least two binbags' worth of green' waste is brought in.

Get these things right and Kidderminster would be on its way to having an infrastructure capable of encouraging new retail businesses into the town and thus attracting more visitors.

Posted by John Combe, Kidderminster: The ideas for illuminating the gateways are good, and the sugar beet silos could have some artwork painted on them to make them really stand out, they could look great.

The Weavers cottages in the Horsefair could be renovated, they are historically important. The town needs a decent venue for music, but the town hall is not entirely suitable for rock music. Crown House needs flattening. I have many thoughts, but that is enough for now.

Regarding the article on a new vision for Kidderminster, while there are some very good ideas for improvement in quite a few places, I could not believe anyone living close to the old silos on the British Sugar site on Stourport Road seeing them as iconic'.

They are two plain concrete eyesores and slapping a bit of paint on and calling it public art won't alter that fact.

The comparison to the fine example of a bricklayers art in the chimney at Weavers Wharf defies belief. Obviously those who refer to them as iconic' don't live near enough to have their own view ruined by them.

I'm aware of the possible closure of the main road, the Severn Valley Railway and a few factories in order to blow them up but I'm sure I'm one of a great many who would take great pleasure in pressing the button!

MRS LINDA WILLIAMS Whittall Drive East, Kidderminster

Posted by markjl36, wolverley: I think its a case of looking at what mistakes have been made and learn from them.

The hole at the bottom of Comberton Hill must go. The town already has a cinema so the council need to think outside the box regarding Worcester Street. A taskforce is needed to build a bypass to Horsefair and regenerate the area.

Posted by: leeroy, kidderminster I'm born and bred in Kidderminster and have lived here for 31 years and have seen the town change a lot I agree with getting rid of the Crown House building which lets the whole town down along with the TJ Hughes building along side it.

Other sore points are the gateway into the town like Station Hill. My granddad showed me pictures of Station Hill when it had trees every 20 yards from the bridge to the ring road but now it's all stripped away showing run-down buildings on route to Kidderminster.

I think that's the main problem for Kidderminster - there are too many 60s and 70s buildings still hanging around.

Sure, we still need an ice rink, multiplex cinema, large café and tin-pin bowling facilities because other towns like Telford support these needs for their residents.

On the positive side, the face of Kidderminster is changing, through. There has been a a lot of investment over the last eight years like Weavers Wharf which has shops, a gym and places to eat.

Then there's massive retail park where the old carpet factory used to be Crossley Park and then Green Street, which had no life at all, but is now packed with a nightclub, pool bars, modern office blocks, DIY store and a small cinema.

Towns like Droitwich, Bromsgrove and Redditch would love to have what we have here at Kidderminster.

8:30am Thursday 8th May 2008

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