SO MANY planning applications are being submitted many of which are granted but with little thought to the impact on the environment - from the aesthetic angle to carbon emissions. These last two weekends should wake up the planners to where the building is being erected and whether they believe in weather pattern change or not; concrete does not allow for drainage of the rainwater which we have received over this winter. We were told a few years ago that houses built on the Poundbury estate would include front gardens, I grant you a few do have minuscule front gardens but the vast majority do not, especially what is being built now which mainly comprises of flats, only a few trees are being planted to combat the carbon emissions we all create.

Other planning applications are being submitted to build on low lying land, which for the unsuspecting home owner will cause flooding at some stage. I grant you the flooding is not all down to the builders but a combination of poor drainage, farmers and the council not clearing ditches and rivers etc, not to mention the changes in weather patterns.

I love Dorchester, feel privileged to live in, at present, an area of outstanding beauty, with little pollution, but do despair of the decisions being made by the council on our behalf regarding planning permission being granted for yet more houses! I ask myself who these house are for? They are certainly not for those that need the housing, but filled with people like myself that want the country life which is disappearing at a fast rate of knots.

I have lived and worked in Dorchester for 57 years, always lived in Dorset so feel I have room to comment on the future of our town, where real estate is being sold to developers for pittance.

The other thought being with the population increasing, land being taken up by building on green and brownfield sites how will we feed this populace as we are not all going down the vegan route and even if we were we need land to provide vegetation.

Heather Robinson

Bridport Road

Dorchester