I WOULD like to add to your thought-provoking editorial "Enough is Enough" (April 18). The thing about AONB is that it does work. The Countryside Agency in its literature takes great pride in protecting the 14 per cent of the English countryside which carries its designation of Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. This does not have to be "open country" as implied in your comment.
The boundaries are flexible and the Agency have never denied the essential beauty of the area. Anyone walking in the woods to see the bluebells in what is numerically the largest oak forest in Europe could only think the same.
It is very odd that the Agency Board cannot or will not grasp that recommending AONB status as a restraint against any future ugly planning applications can live comfortably with the new approach of Integrated Rural Development which, whatever its possible merits, does not provide the same protection. Although the Countryside Agency is supposed to be independent in its recommendations there was a reference to "being in line with Government thinking" and one hopes that the Board members are merely a bit muddled.
Where the IRD blueprint for the Forest of Dean when it eventually appears, will fail is that by its nature it will be based on its priorities and proposals on facts that relate to the here and now. As the Forest of Dean socially, politically, economically is undergoing rapid and largely unpredictable change it is sure to be out of date almost before it leaves the drawing board.
Take just one case of how AONB would work. A quarry company applies to open a new or greatly extend an old quarry. At present this would be judged and decided upon by a committee of the county council. With the modern, enhanced version of AONB the application could be challenged and the company would have to convince an independent inspector that the local area would be safeguarded as far as possible and that the mineral extraction was essential to the national interest. Those developers whose only interest is maximum, short-term profit, would have difficulty and are probably jubilant that a decision has been deferred by the Board.
As a member of the planning committee for West Dean, the first line of defence, I am certain, like the thousands who signed the petition, that at present the system is biased towards the developers and over-riding Government directives. – Roger Horsfield, Highfield, Pastors Hill, Bream.