JUST a few months ago it was Hoof this and Hoof that, Save our Forest, keep the Forestry Commission screamed posters, and especially the local newspapers, encouraging local people to show their mettle and demonstrate...

But save our Forest from what? Was it the danger that it could be sold? To whom? Well, um...to somebody!

Could it be that the local planners and the Cinderford Regeneration panel could more easily get a deal done with the Forestry Commission in grabbing and desecrating 200 acres of our unique and supposedly protected Forest of Dean?

For the last two weeks an enquiry into this plan by a government appointed inspector has been conducted at the Council Offices in Coleford. Members of the public, plus wildlife bodies from far and wide who had made representations concerning this destructive invasion of concrete, brick and tarmac into the Statutory Forest were invited to take part to voice their opinions and oppositions to this plan.

Not one day was the local press present.

This gathering, over the whole period of the examination, was made up of perhaps six local people, including I think, about three natural born forester. Why?

I think perhaps if it had enjoyed the publicity of what was going on (like the almost hysterical shouting from the rooftops the Hoof campaign enjoyed) things might have been a lot different.

But what is this appalling plan? Well, it's to drive a new roadway of about half a mile through an area of the Forest of Dean, then to build alongside it a hotel, a college and various other equally unnecessary buildings.

Remember, we've already got a college in a super place, an excellent mix of good quality hotels (think Speech House Hotel, Bells Hotel, Lambsquay House Hotel, etc.) plus public houses and Inns offering good value for money accommodation, all in the near vicinity, and established by private money not public money (which means yours and mine).

Then we've got another couple of hundred houses dumped there, which means perhaps, 700 to a thousand imported people, with another couple of a hundred vehicles.

Then come the students at the college. I'm sure a large number of them will drive there and many more will come on buses. Think of all those buses in the morning, and again in the afternoon. Then all the teachers will have to drive there. Then these buildings will have to be serviced – think of all the lorries and other delivery vehicles, a combination of hundreds of vehicle movements a day.

Ah, but we will have a nice new road say the Regeneration Team and other outsiders, and that's only another few thousand frogs, newts, snakes, birds and bats to squash and kill. And look at all the nice new verges, just right for the wild boar to root up. You've got to get your priorities right, say these misguided people, it's regeneration that comes first, and we've got all this nice public money to spend at Cinderford, and we've got to spend it somewhere, and where better to spend it than where it will do the maximum damage.

Two hundred acres – yes, two hundred acres – will be taken out of Statutory Forest for this development, and the council acknowledged this at the enquiry. This is setting a precedent for the future. We need to save our forest now.

Spend it on enhancing Cinderford town itself, say you. But we already enhanced it say the Regeneration Team – look at all the yellow lines we've painted on the roads!

In a recent published letter Mr Belcher tried to alert Foresters to this imminent danger arising from a coalition of a misled Regeneration Team, over-ambitious planners, selfish councillors and a Forestry Commission (half of who wouldn't have a job if it wasn't for all the people of this area) hellbent in looking after their own selfish interests and not of the Forest of Dean.

I sent a letter to the local papers months ago highlighting this subject. It was published with a lot of editing and swamped by Hoof letters.

God help us – I despair!

– I. G. Ellis, Lower Milkwall.