I WAS a little disappointed in your reporting of the refusal at Beachley Road, Sedbury by the planning committee.

You chose to emphasise the threat of the costs of an appeal which, granted, was the 'new material consideration' from the planners, bought at great expense from a barrister although discussed in full at the previous meeting and therefore not new.

However, there are more questions than answers about this application. S106 (contributions to infrastructure from developers) have not been requested for many things:

Why did Gloucestershire Highways claim that the traffic queues do not occur? They admitted there might be a 'knock-on effect from the traffic lights at Tesco'. All the queues must a figment of our imaginations. Your report the other week of the tailback to Lydney obviously didn't happen.

As a consequence of this, Forest of Dean District Council also decided that the extra three per cent traffic (statistics provided by developer) would not cause extra emissions in the Hardwick Hill air quality management area where they are have to reduce the traffic by 10 per cent. Perhaps only electric cars would have been used by the residents.

Monmouthshire County Council did object and requested S106 contributions, but Forest of Dean planners had decided that there were no problems and the developers refused to pay any.

Gloucestershire County Council missed out on contributions to school places by claiming that the 110 family homes would only have 50 children in total.

The police were only given a short amount of time to put in their claim, and had no further opportunity to enter one after the application was deferred from the first meeting, or even after the refusal at the first attempt before the second attempt was refused again. So yet another cost saved by the developer.

Someone has written that the Forest of Dean must own the public footpath, but that is a public right of way over private land, common throughout the country.

The stretch they own is probably (but not acknowledged) a 'ransom strip' to gain access to the site from the main road.

While this would be worth a fortune in private hands, hence the nickname, in local council ownership it can be handed over to the developer for a nominal sum if they wish the development to go ahead.

When the developer originally proposed the site, they wanted 220 houses on the site. The application is for 110, but they refused to increase the hedge widths for the wildlife mitigation.

Is this because it would reduce the space available for an increase in number of houses to be built there when full planning permission was requested?

It is now acknowledged that the councillors where never told of refusal by the Secretary of State at appeal.

Approval here would have set a precedent to build outside the settlement boundary. Another developer has already started public consultation for 160 houses in Tutshill outside the boundary again, while the next door field to this site has been sold.

This is why the refusal was so important – the alternative is a massive housing estates with no new infrastructure here, destruction of wildlife habitat and loss of the green boundary between the villages.

There are currently 2618 houses with full planning permission but not started yet in the Forest of Dean more than required for the five-year plan so beloved of the planners.

By Gloucestershire County Council's and Forest of Dean District Council's refusal to ask for S106 contributions, there is a tacit understanding that they will be adding to Chepstow's problems without offering assistance.

Yet we pay council tax to them and will not get the improvements they could insist on and it's our quality of life which will be spoilt.

– K. Harris, Tutshill.