Sir, – I have been made aware of the Campaign to Protect Rural England campaign to protect the countryside from development. I recently attended a fringe meeting that considered the risks to the countryside, particularly by housing and commercial development, at our Lib Dem conference in Liverpool in March.

I have also spoken on the matter at several conferences and have called for the need to allow appeals by the community as well as by developers. At present the system is loaded in favour of developers.

In recent years, I have fought to protect greenbelt land from development and I have been involved for over two years in a contested development which seeks to develop an area of prime agricultural land.

Several areas of this constituency, including prime agricultural land, are under threat from aggressive developers seeking to build lucrative housing developments. It is important to have strong local plans but even where they are in place developers seem to have the upper hand. Planning regulations may take account of education infrastructure but they often ignore other infrastructure needs like sewerage, transport and health.

I strongly support of a right to a community appeal, to give communities a voice against monied developers, and I also strongly support considering brownfield possibilities before looking at greenfield sites.

As well as protecting the countryside, Liberal Democrats also plan to introduce five laws for a greener Britain: a Nature Act; a Green Homes Act; a Zero Waste Britain Act; a Zero Carbon Britain Act; and a Green Transport Act. Full details of these are available on our local and national websites.

JACQUIE BELL

Parliamentary Candidate, Skipton and Ripon Liberal Democrats.