COUNCILLORS and planners, you have a duty to your local community to nurture and preserve the areas of outstanding natural beauty that we are so lucky to have in the borough.

How can you contemplate the destruction of some of the best countryside in the Midlands by proposing the sacrifice of the Webheath ADR and Foxlydiate land for the development of more than 3,000 houses?

I challenge you to walk the Monarchs Way and the accompanying public footpaths, view the abundant wildlife and well farmed working fields which will be destroyed forever if these plans come to fruition.

There are far more appropriate areas to develop for housing in the borough including many of the dormant brown field sites.

Central government may be forcing your hand to act quickly but please act responsibly. Do you indeed know where the 25,000 or so residents are coming from who are going to occupy the 7,000 dwellings in the overall plan for the borough?

I sincerely hope that you are not pandering to Big Brother when the reality is that nowhere near the volume of houses proposed is realistic and as such will not be built. Please act responsibly to protect our countryside for future generations. Once it’s gone, it’s gone forever.

ALAN ADAMSON Webheath