SIR – On a recent walk around the countryside footpaths near the village of Norton, near Worcester we came to where the proposed new Parkway station is to be constructed, at this point the footpath has been closed by order of Worcestershire County Council.

It was closed in March to allow work to begin on clearing the site. We walked this same path back in March and witnessed the untidy destruction of mature trees (which we photographed) all left smashed on the ground, obviously waiting to be cleared away.

Well, six months later and the scene is still the same apart from the vegetation that has grown through the smashed trees, no further progress has been made by the contractor apart from a large boarded fence preventing the public seeing the absent workforce.

A maximum total of one week’s work has been accomplished in six months, no surprise as it is Worcestershire County Council who are in charge of this project, the same bunch who organised the widening of one mile of road from Whittington to the Ketch. If the small alteration of the Whittington roundabout is included this took four (yes, FOUR) years, the length of the First World War.

Who thinks WCC should be in charge of the people’s taxes? A private company was willing to construct the Parkway station free of charge to the taxpayer and, would have had it completed by now if WCC had not intervened and given itself permission to waste £23 million of the people’s taxes on this vanity project. £23 million was last year’s figure, nearer £30 million now on something that was going to cost nothing.

William Harris, Worcester