County ruined by over-house building

THANK you for publishing that most enlightening article on the unrequired, excessive house building ruining beautiful Devon over the past three and five years.

It was good of you to have placed it in a prominent position on the first page of Saturday’s paper.

Its content is devastating; the truth at last meticulously recorded by professionals running The Campaign to Protect Rural England: 30% houses more than required!

No wonder I am shocked to realise the truth of what one had always suspected. Whenever one contested yet another application for building a housing estate during these past years, one has been frequently palmed off with the mantra: “We have to build, we need more houses”!

Lies and hypocrisy, often just kowtowing to a wealthy developer desiring to smother a greenfield site.

I am sad but relieved that this is now proved as such by this revealing data of the CPRE.

There was another heartbreaking article in the WMN, on the horrendous decline at present in Cornwall’s wildlife. I expect Devon is not much better, despite the tireless work by all our Wildlife Trusts struggling with little Government support.

The neglect by any Government to make laws by which the countryside is always put first, laws to be as strictly punished as any other criminal offence if disobeyed, have never been addressed in our country.

Our lives must change dramatically if our planet is to survive.

Mary Truell Lympstone, Devon