I AGREE with correspondent David Hosier’s view regarding the awful prospect of huge housing developments in so many Hampshire villages.

He tends to lay the blame for all of this anxiety of blighted lives for existing residents at the feet of the Government and its new lax planning regime. However, I see other culprits much closer at hand.

I do not know how proactive parish or county councillors have been at Overton or Stockbridge, but I regret that here at Goodworth Clatford, there appears to be a growing somewhat anti-democratic conflict.

Far from fighting off our development threats to farmland at Barrow Hill, they are actually colluding with a pressure group called Action Hampshire to promote what is called “affordable housing”.

The parish council minutes make it clear that instead of trying to fight off any threats, they are still actively seeking sites and partnerships.

Galvanised local action can surely scupper such threats with a fighting fund to pay for legal blocks and to force public enquiry.

Vital action like that, parish-led, can sometimes hold back the tide of these developments for years while we all hope for better governance and full rural protection to be restored.

As Mr Hosier so rightly pointed out, so many of our villages are now under threat that we must redouble our efforts to fight off every development – with our without the parish councillors concerned.

C Somers-Cocks Barrowfield, Goodworth Clatford