MADAM – As if to confirm the increasing detachment of Ministers of State from the population, I note that the Rt Hon Eric Pickles, MP, recently made a ‘flying visit’ to Stroud in which he failed to meet the electorate at large and made a vain attempt to pin all the blame on the local council for the rash of unwanted planning applications across the Stroud Valleys.

In taking this course of action, the Rt Hon Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government not only confirms his isolation from the electorate; he also seems to take them for fools.

The government must take its share of responsibility for the distress of many communities in the Stroud Valleys that face unwanted planning applications.

In passing the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) it has created a planning environment that is a developers’ paradise.

Where there is no local plan, the NPPF allows a planning ‘free for all’.

As a result, communities in and around Stroud find their communities swamped and their beautiful countryside and green spaces under threat as rapacious speculators stalk the land.

For the government to pass legislation that creates a virtual moratorium on planning controls, while local plans are emerging, is irresponsible.

Some might even call it vindictive.

We need more housing – but not anywhere and at any price.

The government needs to listen to the electorate.

It must give precedence to emerging local and neighbourhood plans, and reinforce the primacy of protected sites – such as the AONB, landscape character sites, green spaces and the green belt.

Jolyon Neely

Horsley