The speed with which WDDC's developers have raced up the steelwork at one end of the proposed new council offices has done all of us in Dorchester a service.

Everyone can at last see the enormity of it – a facade within a metre of the height and the length of Buckingham Palace, here in the charming Roman county town of Dorchester.

And most of the archaeology beneath it is now gone.

English Heritage has not endorsed the structure that is being raced up. They gave their approval only as part of an overall plan (phase one and phase two) that now seems increasingly unlikely. In a letter dated August 16, 2011, Mr David Stuart, historic areas advisor at EH says: “Had the proposals for the council offices come forward in isolation, without being part of a comprehensive scheme for the site with strategic and compensating benefits for the conservation area, then the out come of our assessment may conceivably have been different.”

The council offices cannot go ahead.

Everyone here knows in their heart that this council office project is misconceived, miscalculated and utterly mistaken. If the steelwork can go up within a few days, it can come down just as quickly.

Let’s just do it – take the hit on the contract cancellation costs, reinstate the car park and get Dorchester fully back in business. The council owes its retailers this on every level.

Chris Holmes Dorchester