NO doubt the County Gazette over the next weeks, months and years, will be reporting and receiving readers’ letters regarding the status that may be imposed upon Taunton – that of ‘Garden Town’.

I moved to Taunton from the first, as it was called, ‘Garden City’ – Letchworth (although it was not a city).

It was the brain child of Ebenezer Howard, a forward-thinking man of his time. In 1898 he published a book entitled ‘To-morrow: A peaceful Path to Real Reform’.

Fundamentally, the ideals of a Garden City were to have a limit on the size and population of a town so it would be able to support its own industry and commerce, meanwhile sustaining domestic housing with land around them giving a countryside feel to the citizens.

This idea was revolutionary, at this time, as the ‘Industrial Revolution’ in the midlands was well under way and housing in these areas was cramped to say the least.

Ebenezer Howard had an uphill struggle from the beginning to put his idea into action.

It was not until 1903 the town of Letchworth slowly began to evolve.

The main development began after the First World War. A major building program of 5,000 homes began in 1945. The population today is 33,600.

It is too late for Taunton to become a ‘Garden Town’ as this community has been here for more than 1,000 years and the infrastructure cannot endure the changes needed to transform the township into a Garden Town.

Lessons could, on the other hand, be learned from ‘Poundbury’ in Dorset.

How can our communities’ planning authority possibly be given permission by the national government, or anyone else, to fulfill a ‘Garden Town’ criteria when they can’t even sort out the vacant Old Cattle Market site?

There must be, somewhere, incompetence within the respective departments at Taunton Deane and Somerset County Council to allow this area to have remained vacant for 10 years!

Therefore as this is the case, as we see it, how on earth does this authority think they can achieve ‘Garden Town’ status?

JEREMY LEYTON
Taunton