This firm means multiple problems

AS we wait to see if Multiplex will appeal to the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM) against the East Cambs District Council decision in January not to grant planning permission for the Mereham development. Further difficulties have beset this huge building corporation that only go to strengthen our case. We do not want this company operating for some 20 years or more in our area.

With losses on the Wembley Stadium project now running at £472.65 million, legal battles are raging with contractors over the steel arch.

The former steel contractors claim that Multiplex has withheld payments and that the reason for the delay with the arch was due to supply of the wrong grade of concrete for the arch footings by another Multiplex contractor.

In March 3,500 workers went home after a beam fell, and the widely reported problems with the drainage and sewer system continue.

The original completion date of the stadium was autumn 2005, later changed to January 2006, and then March 2006. We know it will not be ready for the FA cup final on May 13.

In addition, disruption and major inconvenience has been caused with the cancellation of other major events planned to be held in the stadium in 2006.

There is a growing group of landowners within the proposed Mereham development that are taking a stand against this project and refusing to sign Multiplex's agreements.

They are choosing to protect their way of life and the villages they chose to live in and for their children to grow up in.

I urge other landowners to make further enquiries about the company with whom they are dealing, and to reconsider if it is really the kind of organisation in which they want to place the future of their environment and their trust.

Do they really want to be locked into dealing with these people for the next twenty years of their lives?

ANNA BAILEY

Cambridge Road

Ely