IT seems that the Forest of Dean District Council is getting increasingly desperate to force this project through in the face of all of the mounting evidence against it.

To simply dismiss all of the140 planning objections seems facile and to imply they have come from one source is simply wrong.

The Dean Natural Alliance represents seven concerned environmental and conservation groups – the Green Party being one of them.

The recent public meeting bought together over 100 years of collective experience of bat, invertebrate, butterfly and ecological disciplines as well as an expert former mines inspector.

All this expertise and experience, must not, cannot and should not be dismissed out of hand simply because it threatens the development of what increasingly looks like the council's vanity project.

If, as it seems to be suggested, Gloucestershire College does decide to pull the plug on its move and to remain at Five Acres, the people of the Forest will be able to breath a collective sigh of relief in that yet another damaging planning 'egg-on-face' debacle by the council will have been avoided by luck and not by good judgement.

– Sid Phelps, Forest of Dean Green Party.

•Gloucestershire College says although the timescale has been delayed because of groundworks, the college is pressing ahead and remains committed to the Forest.