I’VE been looking at some of the numbers behind Dorset Council’s local plan and they are staggering.

30,000 new homes proposed in the plan is equivalent to two settlements the size of Dorchester, two the size of Poundbury, two the size of Littlemoor and five new villages - all in the space of 18 years across a rural area, half of which is an Area of Outstanding Beauty.

Planning boss David Walsh told a Zoom meeting for people in Dorchester last week that these numbers have been forced on Dorset by national government. Why is he not challenging the government, and Housing Minister Robert Jenrick?

It may be even worse - another 9,000 homes could be switched from the Bournemouth conurbation which would mean Dorset’s housing expending by more than 21% in 18 years - a clearly unsustainable figure. Instead Cllr Walsh says the consequences will be far worse if we don’t provide this land for housing.

The irony is they it would do little for local housing need, little for local jobs and our village economies. It would mean concreting over large areas of our countryside to build homes nobody local can afford to buy, diminishing our natural environment with little benefit to the people of Dorset.

This in not about 4,000 homes above the water meadows in Dorchester - it is about an assault on our county and our lives, driven by a crazed view that all building is good.

Alastair Nisbet

Mellstock Avenue

Dorchester