I think Alastair Nisbet’s letter (23 April) on house building targets for Dorset should be compulsory reading for all Dorset councillors.

He puts the problem in a nutshell.

Unless there is a proper understanding of the county’s real housing needs, then building thousands of houses throughout the county merely to adhere to some computer-generated government figure will be a deep failure for Dorset.

As others have said in your pages, building vast quantities of houses according to ignorant government diktat will merely create properties to be bought by wealthy out-county people, second homes and holiday lets.

Merely helping to fill the coffers of developers will do virtually nothing for the people of this county.

Is it not about time that local authorities forcefully challenged the pointless targets set by central government?

They should demand that a real understanding of the housing needs of each county is put at the heart of future planning, and that locally sensible and sensitive decisions be taken as to the location of such new houses.

This is a responsibility that Dorset Council should not shirk.

If they simply hide behind central government on this issue, as they seem to want to do or say they have no choice, then they will have to accept they are letting the people of Dorset down.

They will also bear a large part of the blame for the destruction of a once rural county and in the process not solving the county’s real housing needs.

RICHARD SAMWAYS

Albert Terrace, Portland