Sir, Well, here we are again, I had naively hoped that Persimmon homes had foundered in the recent financial crisis. Wrong and, worse, the Government and the Vale are helping them — to the tune of £30,000. Will the Vale, from our exceedingly expensive council tax (second highest in the Vale again — for what?) offer £30,000 to allow us to contest this absurd development. I don’t think so.

I live in Vale Avenue and was flooded in the 2007 floods. My property was built about 1950 and, for some reason, the designers, planners and surveyors decided to build my house, and my near neighbours approximately a metre lower than the rest of the houses on the street. The back gardens remained at the same height as the rest.

The point that I am making here is that the floor level of my property is at the same level as several stretches of nearby Main Street which before 1950 was well known to flood on occasions. Designers, planners, trust them at your peril!

The Environment Agency has recently notified me that my property is liable to flooding and the heavy rain at the beginning of March caused a flood alert. Noticeably, the gullies and ditches were in many areas flooded. So, what has been learned and done since 2007?

The houses on the new development will be ok, they can be built higher, the rest of us will suffer.

My opinion as a layman is that the river catchment is unable to cope now. Letcombe Brook and the other water courses need redefining and clearing more regularly now.

A 137-hectare estate with all its buildings and new infrastructure will use multi-thousands of cubic metres of concrete and bricks, which will displace similar amount of green or slightly brown field. To where?

Michael Murfin Vale Avenue Grove