DID I read that Newport council is actually considering granting permission for a 14-storey block of flats on the riverside? I mean, seriously?

Somebody should perhaps remind them that over the last several decades high-rise flats have been systematically blown up, torn down or otherwise vaporised as social and architectural disasters by councils all over the UK. Is Newport so far behind the times? It appears the answer may well be a resounding ‘YES’.

What is it about us, or at least those whom we have myopically appointed to represent us, that we continue to make our town so ugly? WFrom the Colditz look-alike at the Coldra to the prefabricated Lego-pods mushrooming all along the Usk, we seem to have lost all sense of identity, all pretensions to taste. Why?

Julian R Powell, Larch Grove, Newport