LAST Thursday evening I participated in a Zoom meeting with 56 others, to discuss the proposed housing development to the north of Dorchester.

This development, if given the go-ahead, would involve the building of in excess of 3,500 new houses on the green fields north of the county town, immediately above the flood plain, known as the water meadows.

The total development area would be larger than Poundbury. This project would be an environmental and economic disaster if allowed to proceed.

It’s as if the planners at County Hall had collated a file, and placed therein every single lesson that has been learned over the last twenty years about global warming, conservation of habitats, and the importance of halting, and where possible reversing environmental damage, and then tossed the file carelessly out one of the windows of County Hall.

The public consultation is in progress now, and has, at the time of writing, SEVEN days left to run.

I would implore everyone who reads this letter, to visit the STAND website www.stand-dorchester.net and leave their comments on the planning application

Martin Ansell

Sydenham Way

Dorchester