Sir, – The government is under attack from the Campaign to Protect Rural England as many historic and beautiful villages that we all enjoy visiting in our holidays are under threat of massive housing schemes.

The countryside cannot be preserved in aspic, but is it fair to put villages under siege when there are brownfield sites available?

I live in a traditional Yorkshire village surrounded by beautiful countryside and tourism is very important. We have five listed buildings and a 12th century church of St Wilfrid and a lot of traffic already, specially at school times.

We have a good village school and a great gastro-pub, no shops and little public transport.

But we are under police siege. The North Yorkshire force wants to build its Northern headquarters here and an operational police station with a ten-cell custody suite on a greenfield site outside the local development framework area right opposite the school, relocating 550 staff (excluding detainees).

Our population is just 220.

Northallerton Police Station will close. The fire service is to be reviewed and sharing a site with the police was mentioned as a possibility last week.

The impact on the community will be permanent. Once done, the clock cannot be turned back. The village will have lost its character for ever.

The police strategy appears to be centralising services and having large custody suites at York, Harrogate and South Kilvington to cover North Yorkshire.

Detainees will be driven many miles to one of these no matter what state they are in, to be “processed”.

Detainees can be released at any time of the day or night. In fact, there is no right to detain them, so how will they get home?

The only time the police can impose their authority on an individual is if they have power in law to do so. Most will be many miles from home, abandoned and on foot with a twomile walk to Thirsk – more if they want a train.

At one time they would have been detained nearer home and could phone a friend. Now that friend could be in Scarborough or Richmond.

Projects like this one are trying to slip under the wire. It is time Nick Boles, planning minister, listened to the CPRE before any more unnecessary damage is done to the countryside and his party.

JOY DAVIES South Kilvington, Thirsk