MICHAEL MARTYN writes, via email:

Reference the current planning application for housing on land adjoining Bradley Lane, your readers may be interested to know that the site was for centuries a series of meadows used for hay and pasture; which being level, close to the centre of town and upstream of (most) sewage outflows were also used for gatherings to celebrate national events.

In May 1875 these meadows were even the site of Devon County Show, then in its third year. They were first built on in the 1920s when Bradley Mill was extended, but a large area remained open until the 1960s.

Would it not be nice therefore if, while retaining the old mill buildings for commercial and leisure use, the land could be ‘re-greened’ and the adjoining River Lemon made a more accessible feature; the latter surely a more practicable proposition than uncovering its course through Sherborne Road, as seems to be contemplated in the Local Plan.

The area could then form with Bradley Meadow, Baker’s Park, Victoria Gardens and the Recreation Ground a green corridor through the town centre, one that could be enhanced were the cattle market to close if its site were restored to the garden that existed here until 1938 and also originally had a decorative water feature.

The Victorians accompanied expansion of the town by providing Courtenay, Forde and Powderham Parks, the Edwardians Baker’s Park, the Georgians Penn Inn Park and the Elizabethans Decoy Country Park and Victoria Gardens. So how about the Caroleans adding ‘Bradley Mill Meadows’.