Sir, In what must be a sure-fire vote loser, Matthew Hancock, the Minister for Business, has promised that should the Tories win the General Election they intend to cut further the planning regulations.

There can hardly be a town or village in the county which has not been battered and bruised by the endless stream of outrageous planning applications.

Our lives are being turned upside down, towns and villages ruined, as application after application is being waved through despite huge common sense opposition. The Tories plan to reduce what regulation there is left within the building trade, energy, railway and the chemical industries. Under a future Conservative Government, will there be a rural retreat anywhere without the threat of an anaerobic digester, refuse incinerator, solar farm, and yet more housing being dumped on their doorstep? Will their plans prevent local communities from effectively protesting about this continual assault on the quality of their lives?

Are the Conservatives going to give even more free rein to the railways to close major roads at next-to-no notice? Or for developers to build on Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty? Is there no longer anything the Conservatives are prepared to conserve?

The thought of developers being given yet more powers, while local people are to stripped of theirs, is a nightmare recipe for planning bedlam.

For the Conservatives, it is all about money and never-ending growth: more people, more homes, more industry, more traffic, more everything . . . except the land to hold it all or feed us.

You cannot eat bricks!

Keith Dancey

School Road

West Hanney