12 JULY 1935, Page 3

Ribbon. Development Bill This Session Mr. H. A. L. Fisher,

on behalf of the Oxford Preserva- tion Trust, calls attention in The Times to the urgency of the case for putting the Ribbon Development Bill on the Statute Book this session. The speculators who are interested in exploiting the frontage values know that they can do no more than defer the measure for a year ; but in the course of that year hundreds of miles of road-sides might be built on and more of those built-up areas created where two out of three of the deaths on the roads occur—four out of five in the case of children. There is an obvious danger that their spokesmen will by to protract the Committee's work. If, in spite of their efforts, the Government insists on seeing the Bill through this session it will not only have preserved hundreds of miles of main road for the purpose for which they were constructed, but will, as Mr. Fisher, without exaggeration points out, have saved the lives of hundreds of children. The Bill ought to be strengthened. in Com- mittee. But passed in one form or another this session it must be. .

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