Imagine the scene. It is the 1930s. J.R.R. Tolkien stands atop the Lickey Hills, looking out across Worcestershire towards the Malvern's to the west and the rise of the Cotswolds to the east. The view remains breathtaking even today, rolling fields, scattered woods, church towers and distant hills. In my view, this is part of the wider countryside long associated with Tolkien’s imagination, the kind of quiet English landscape that people readily connect with The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

Now turn one hundred and eighty degrees. Looking north from the Lickeys, from the Black Country across towards Coventry, you see something very different, land already shaped by urban growth, industry, transport corridors and major infrastructure. That is precisely why the argument for Wychavon Town makes so little sense to me.

If politicians and planners are serious about regeneration, then surely the focus should be where infrastructure already exists. The roads are there, the rail links are there, and the wider transport network is already established. HS2 itself underlines that point. Its West Midlands hubs are Birmingham Curzon Street and Interchange, not Worcester Parkway. The obvious connected corridor already exists to the north, where land is already urban in character and where brownfield first ought to mean something in practice, not just in slogans.

That is why Wychavon Town is, in my view, the wrong project in the wrong place. Instead of protecting open countryside, long views and established rural communities, central government, Homes England and too many silent local representatives seem willing to treat this area as if it were simply spare space on a planner’s map.

I have reached out to each and every councillor and asked them to pin their colours to the mast, because the public have every right to know where their elected representatives stand on a planning decision of this scale. People vote for representatives on the basis of what they claim to stand for, so it is entirely reasonable to ask them to state their position openly and clearly on one of the biggest planning decisions this district has ever faced.

If you love Tolkien’s stories, and you love this place, ask yourself one simple question. Would Tolkien have looked at a landscape like this and seen something worth protecting, or something to be flattened in the name of yet another so called new community, driven by top down policies rather than the character, needs and realities of this district?

That, to me, is the greatest fantasy, the idea that people can stay silent on a decision of this magnitude and still claim to represent the communities affected by it.

There is no wizard coming to save this place. There are no hobbits fighting our corner. There is only the public, the people who live here, and those willing to speak up before this countryside is lost. The pen is mightier than the sword, and together that pen can shine a light on failure, challenge bad decisions and call those responsible to account.

As ever please share the petition far and wide and share your views at stopwychavontown@gmail.com