Common sense is lacking

All the officials and planners have consistently reassured everyone present, that our green belt/farmland would only be used when all the other plots were no longer available.

However, in October at the Rotherham council offices on main street I attended a meeting chaired by the chief planning inspector, a meeting where only invited persons were permitted to speak and unfortunately, I was not one of them.

The information provided during this meeting appeared to change, firstly the number of proposed houses increased from 12,600 to 17,000! Surely, this in itself  should warrant another long period of consultations, secondly according to the chief planning inspector there is no protection for our green belt farm land, indeed Rotherham planners have it even cheaper to build on.

In recent years and especially this month we have seen precious farm land across our country under water which seems to be a global trend with crops failing in parts of the world.

With our ever increasing populations in the UK and worldwide it seems to me irresponsible, if not immoral to build on our food producing fields when there are other sites available, albeit a little more challenging for the developers. The powers that be should listen to ordinary people, as common sense appears to be lacking at the top.                             

J Green, Greasbrough