Audrey Peters, of Sandygate, Kingsteignton, writes:

Unfortunately I was unable to attend Eagle One Homes' presentation about building on Penns Mount, but had I done so I would certainly have expressed an opinion against the proposal.

I am sure it is right that there is a shortage of available housing in the area but Penns Mount is too important a site to allow it to be lost for ever to house building.

The visual impact on visitors as they come over the hill from Eagle Farm on the A380, with the River Teign and the fields of Netherton ahead and Penns Mount on the right is a great welcome and a reminder that they have arrived in south Devon.

It is more than just a 'green space' – it is a working agricultural area with fields, hedges and grazing livestock, for which this area was once so famed – and which visitors come expecting to find. As they drop down towards Penn Inn all too soon they are enveloped in the suburban sprawl of Buckland and the industrial estates – without even considering the development that will destroy the countryside of the Kingskerswell valley.

The planners talk of public parks, a play area, walking and cycling routes: we already have these at Hackney Marshes, along the River Teign and up to Ware Barton, at Buckland, along beside the Aller Brook and up into Milber woods.

As a dog walker, I find there is an amazing number of good routes around Kingsteignton and Newton Abbot, but very little remains of the precious green spaces that are without people, without concrete, without bicycles, without football pitches.

The 'visual impact' is highlighted as being a key issue in this development but the visual impact of Penns Mount, if it were to go ahead, would be entirely lost for residents, visitors and the thousands of commuters toiling past on the A380 twice a day.

All this, of course, is without the question of additional traffic on the local roads, providing water for the housing estate, for finding employment without having to commute along the already-choked A380.

In this instance I am not a Nimby, as I live on the opposite side of Kingsteignton. But I am able to take pleasure from this little remnant of working farmland in what is fast becoming the suburban and industrial sprawl of Kingsteignton and Newton Abbot.THIS AND OTHER LETTERS IN OUR DIGITAL EDITION