Rachel Roberts's experience with the planning authority (the 'Post', January 15) mirrors my own. It is infuriating to think that blood money, paid by developers so that they can build houses that no local can afford, should be swallowed up by an authority which will be obliged in a few months' time to hand over its assets to a remote, unwanted and uninterested council based in Truro.
As a parish councillor, I, along with my colleagues, am fed up with wasting my time giving careful consideration to planning applications, only to have our views ignored and sometimes not even reported to the elected members of North Cornwall District Council's Planning Committee.
Worse still, when we visited their offices at Bodmin recently, in the company of district councillor Tony Edwards, we were disgusted at the obstructive attitude which we encountered in our attempts to secure the sale of the parish hall site for two conventional houses in order to fund land acquisition for a new hall and some affordable housing.
Research for our Parish Plan revealed that approximately one in ten families in the parish had a direct interest in the provision of affordable housing: (ie either they or someone in their family needed accommodation in Poundstock). And yet, apart from sites which we identified and were rejected, every bit of land which could be used for this parish's benefit is receiving approval for what will be second homes — if they're ever sold! An effective way to kill a community.
Poundstock Parish Councillor,
Widemouth Bay.