Re the Review article (September 25) "No New Houses Here A spokesman for the developers said "The Allaston development would provide 200 much needed homes for the people of Lydney"

Now in my second spell as a county councillor I may be out of touch and naive, somehow I don't think so.

Therefore the spokes­man's statement I strongly believe is seriously flawed, maybe even based on the myth that the district council continues to perpetuate that masses of people still require housing in the Forest. 

I would welcome the opportunity for the   spokesman to look me in the eye and justify the statement.

Equally a walk around Lydney (particularly Lydney East) would reveal the amount of properties that lie empty – perhaps an initiative on this issue would be beneficial.

Lydney, like many other towns and cities, also has a significant amount of empty space above retail units.

Why not an initiative to convert these to "first-time" flats that could have the potential to benefit the landlord and in a small way serve to regenerate the centres?

I digress, what Lydney actually needs is an assurance that basic infrastructure needs are addressed to cope with housing developments. Both those that are taking place now and those that have already received planning permission. Then and only then should further development be looked at and then only on existing brownfield sites around the by-pass rather than prime agricultural land.

Last year when questioned, the district council stated that 98 per cent of people on the new Oakdale estate had local connections.

Eyes and ears indicate otherwise – the council's local connection criteria should obviously be taken with a rather large dosage of salt and a fairly large map of the southern half of the UK.

Localism has certainly not delivered the much promised improvement in local planning that was needed to compensate for the damage created by the "build at all cost" Regional Spatial Strategy of the Labour government.

As a firm believer in democracy, when contentious issues such as the Allaston issue arise, local people should be given the opportunity to decide through a local referendum process. Democracy would then emerge as the victor ­– who could argue?

– County Cllr Alan Preest, Lydney, UKIP.