ON November 14, when the planning committee vote on whether to destroy a rich wildlife site by granting permission for the Cinderford Northern Quarter, I hope that they will consider the potential difficulties and unknown aspects of the site (mining, landfill, ground gas, asbestos etc.) and that the costs of this development may well spiral wildly out of control.

I believe that the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) and the Forest of Dean District Council have pursued this development without regard to the interests of the local community and since the Forest of Dean Council will be giving approval to the HCA, they are able to ignore or suppress all opposition.

The HCA persuaded Natural England to issue licences to move the great crested newts before planning has been granted.

Natural England agreed to issue the licences due to 'exceptional circumstances'. On further questioning, Natural England disclosed that the 'exceptional circumstances' were simply to keep up with the HCA's development programme.

The HCA persuaded the Coal Authority into withdrawing their opposition. Although the Coal Authority have now removed their objection, following receipt of 'basic information regarding coal mining legacy issues', they stated that 'only raw data, in the form of borehole logs, has been submitted to the Coal Authority with no further interpretation of the results' and that they would normally expect professional interpretation of any site investigations together with the raw data.

One wonders why they accepted the raw data without interpretation – it couldn't have anything to do with the applicant being the HCA, could it not?

But I admire the Coal Authority for standing up to the HCA for so long.

I believe that the HCA has already wasted millions on the Northern Quarter and is prepared to waste a lot more.

But why should it worry? It's not accountable to us or to anyone.

It is a central government agency and there isn't any watchdog organisation making sure it delivers value-for-money.

When the planning committee deliberate on the Cinderford Northern Quarter development application, they should ask themselves whether it coincides with National Planning Policy Framework.

The Cinderford Co-op has already demonstrated that planning policy is supposed to support town centre which the CNQ defin­ite­ly does not.

How would the planning approval for this development stand up to close scrutiny? To me, after reading documents on the planning portal, it seems that data has been distorted or ignored by the HCA to further its aims.

At the time of writing there are 230 objectors, of which over 100 are resident in Cinderford, the Forest of Dean or environs.

You can really feel their anger, sadness and anguish when you read their letters. Many are several pages long, rich with data about the site and must have taken hours to write.

You would be struck by how many of the objectors, local and not, have waded through all the documents on the website and how knowledgeable they are and how illuminating are their comments.

Some people have written repeatedly, responding to new information posted on the website or with new information of their own, or sometimes perhaps just to relieve their frustration about the threatened loss of somewhere that they feel passionately about.

Just think for a moment about those people who have spent literally years monitoring the wildlife on this site and watching it develop and how they must be feeling now.

I almost forgot to mention the letters in support of the application – there are three of them (one from the Cinderford Regeneration Board, one from GFirst and one from Gloucestershire College).

I would ask Councillors Glastonbury, Davies, Bevan, Burford, Davis, Fraser, Gooch, Hobman, Jones, Kirkpatrick, Morgan, Sterry, Thomas, Thomson and Yeates to stand up to the HCA on November 14 and do what is right for the people that they represent, for Cinderford and the Forest of Dean – refuse planning permission and insist that the HCA spend what is left of their budget on 'intensifying employment use' in the existing trading estate and derelict employment sites around Cinderford– where it should have been spent in the first place.

– Nicky Packer, Cinderford.