An architect has criticised those people in Winchester who believe the city must not change.

"Many of the Hampshire Chronicle's recent and well-intentioned, if sometimes intemperate, correspondents have missed an important feature of Winchester's character," Michael Carden writes in the City of Winchester Trust News.

"They have failed to appreciate that the most dominant characteristic of the city is that it has continuously changed and must continue to do so if it is to retain its character.

He says: "To halt development in the middle-age of these correspondents would be illogical and selfish. If this had been done in the city's middle-ages, we would have none of the post-medieval buildings which contribute enormously to the character of the city, however much some of them upset people in their time because they too often appeared to be in stark contrast with their neighbours.

"The development of the stretch of open land between St Cross and Winchester or the loss of the green fields of Oram's Arbour and on St Giles' Hill would not have occurred and "of course, we would have no railway line or viaduct!" said Mr Carden, who is vice-chairman of the trust.

"We should, however, combine to exclude from our city both junk buildings - in the sense of junk food - and the wasteful use of precious resources such as our valued buildings and our open countryside."

The Bar End park and ride was an unwelcome loss of open land - "But it is only a small sacrifice because the area concerned was, until recently, a bypass, not water meadows or ancient wildflower meadowland, as is often claimed, and only uses about 10% of the reclaimed land.

"Minstrels Restaurant is, by any standards, a junk building and suitable for redevelopment," he added.

Mr Carden said the green wedge of Barton Farm was something all Winchester would hate to see reduced. "But if eventually forced by the Government to accept some extension of the urban boundary, where should such a development be which would not do equal harm?

"Whatever the outcome, we must insist that any new development does not repeat the junk design and wasteful use of land with which we have become so familiar.

"I hope, should the need arise, that we might achieve something at least as good in density and design as, say, Oram's Arbour."