Sir – A travesty is engulfing our country and our local democracy that is allowing developers to build on historic greenfield sites, when they have buildable land within the envelope of the village.
I recently attended a Vale of White Horse District Council planning committee meeting in Abingdon. At issue was the application by a local developer to build two houses in Southmoor:
1: On a greenfield site outside the built-up area of the village
2: That will destroy the centuries-old public view of open countryside and the setting of a listed 17th-century building.
This in a village already hit by VOWH planning ‘approval’ to build more than 200 houses on greenfield sites, all of which were refused by the local parish council.
Further, the applicant has plenty of land within the built-up area of the village on which he could build houses, and had admitted that he wanted to build on a greenfield site ‘because the rules are now so slack’.
So, the chairman of our parish council and a representative of 30 petitioners each spoke for their allotted three minutes as to why the building application should be refused.
They were ignored and not allowed to speak again. 
Approval to build was the outcome.
It was pure 1930s Soviet Union. And it is happening up and down our land.
Surely, we should have a rule that developers must use existing buildable land before forever eating up our precious countryside and heritage.
Rob Belk, Southmoor