A hurricane of relief...

Your front-page story on stopping the concreting over of our precious green fields wasn’t just a breath of fresh air but a hurricane of relief.

At last it’s local headline news, reflecting what thousands of residents have been feeling for years; the unsustainable and wreckless over-development on greenfield land without infrastructure or service development and the blurring of individual town and village identities.

Arundel, which is meant to be one of the jewels of West Sussex is under threat like everywhere else, but not by a greedy developer but someone who you would expect to act as a custodian of the land, the Duke of Norfolk.

His estate is now being managed by Savills and immediately a greenfield site on the boundary of Arundel has outline planning permission for 90 houses, setting a precedent for development all the way along the Arun valley to Ford.

A beautiful wildlife rich valley which is already facing destruction from the threat of the A27 bypass, an incinerator the size of Battersea Power Station, 1,500 houses at Ford Airfield and another 300 houses at Climping.

Despite obtaining nearly 2,000 local signatures against the development, the Norfolk Estate, which has always said it would listen to the wishes of local residents, plough on with the proposal.

It is particularly galling in light of Prince William’s hugely inspiring Earthshot initiative! It seems that everyone is being asked to do there bit to save the planet but the people that could really make a difference;