Save us from the selfishness of people like Trevor Murdin (Apr 14).

I must remind him and others like him, yet again, that over 18,000 people of all walks of life signed a petition against the ruination of one of our prize parks, that road widening does not help traffic problems and that the town's heritage matters.

Camp Bling, far from being a medieval throwback, has helped secure one of the most nationally important archaeological finds of this century and is supported by thousands of local people.

We should be thanking them for helping stall further development plans until a responsible plan is in operation for the site's safety.

This find was so important that the British Museum is still analysing it and the TV Time Team made a programme about it.

The ancient king might be dead, but his burial site is an important reminder of our heritage and something which most of us in Southend are proud of.

Mr Murdin obviously couldn't care less about this or anything else which prevents him from getting to a supermarket.

W Hamilton
Westborough Road
Westcliff

...Parklife has been campaigning against the Priory Crescent road-widening scheme since June 2001.

Our intention has always been to oppose any road scheme that would have a detrimental impact either on Priory Park or its immediate surroundings.

Since our group first formed, we have witnessed many developments as the campaign has twisted and turned, with no real resolution to date, despite the best efforts of certain elements within the council to push the scheme forward.

Advocates have come and gone, but opposition remains firm.

We have taken the time and made the effort to talk to many thousands of people across the borough. Our experience time and again in talking to the public is that most are against any widening of Priory Crescent, including the latest revised plans announced to much fanfare by councillors Nigel Holdcroft and Anna Waite in June 2007. It doesn't take a genius to work out the idea was doomed to fail from the very beginning. A little local knowledge and a concern for the environment is enough for most to say that the time has come to consign the idea to the dustbin once and for all.

Councillors Holdcroft and Waite still have the opportunity to do the right thing. Now is the time to cancel the Priory Crescent road widening, thus saving the local taxpayer millions of pounds of wasted money and triggering the dismantling of Camp Bling to enable the East Saxon king's burial to be restored for the benefit of our town.

Shaun Qureshi
Hastings Road
Southend

...The King is dead, let's put him under a road.

Respect for the dead has always been a mark of western civilisation, indeed most civilisations, from the earth mounts of pre-history to the Roman funeral urns and Christian graves being aligned towards the east.

Even Trevor Murdin's cherished Victorians laid out huge cemeteries and erected ostentatious mausoleums and monuments to their dead.

Mr Murdin wants his road and he wants it now. Presumably he'd also like to pay for it?

And he wants it over the last resting place of his king.

Is that really the sum of civilised achievement in the 21st century, that he can get to his B&Q a little sooner?

How sad.

Robert Hallmann
Castle Road
Hadleigh

...I defend the Priory blingers, they have done well to stop the destruction of the Priory Crescent, etc.

When you consider the damage councils, new and old, have inflicted on the area, plus the greedy developers, it makes the blinger people look like heroes.

A Smith

Kiln Road
Thundersley