YOUR report on the Woodland Trust’s admirable plan to advise landowners on managing ancient woodland (herefordtimes.com, June 15) says this is one of the county’s most precious habitats.

Unfortunately the route proposed for the Southern Link Road, will involve concreting over part of such a habitat – Grafton Wood.

The planning application says we can mitigate the damage to Grafton Wood by planting “new shrubs and trees”. That’s like saying demolishing Hereford Cathedral wouldn’t matter as long as we built another one with the same kind of stone. Our ancient woodlands are natural cathedrals, and as unique, priceless and precious as our stone ones.

And what would we gain? New roads seldom provide a long-term solution for congestion because they generate traffic.

In 1994, the Standing Advisory Committee on Trunk Road Assessment reported: “An average road improvement will see an additional 10% of base traffic in the short term and 20% in the long term.”

After all the cost and disruption building their infamous bypass, Newbury’s town centre is back to the same congestion levels. I don’t want to see the same happen in Hereford with ancient woodland being destroyed for no benefit.

DIANA TOYNBEE Hereford Green Party Parliamentary spokesman, Ruckhall