Cllr Alun Williams, of Fore Street, Bishopsteignton, writes:

I should like to thank your paper for giving coverage to the issue of council enforcement in last week's paper. This relates specifically to the area of planning and seemed to me to relate to three main areas.

My committee was chiefly concerned with enforcement relating to planning conditions, which often seem firm when they are part of a successful application but which might then be reluctantly applied and not always rigorously monitored.

If a successful development is achieved in the teeth of local opposition, objectors expect planning conditions will be applied. This area often, though not always, relates to matters of privacy and overlooking. We argued that if conditions are unenforceable then they should not be part of an original planning agreement.

Equally, there are issues relating to certificates of compliance and lawfulness being granted even though applicants have conspicuously flouted original landscaping agreements. Such agreements might be changed, it seems, on a developer's whim and there are examples of a developer overplanting or pushing ahead with schemes not approved by the council.

The third area concerns businesses being run from home. This was possibly the most difficult area to resolve but it also causes considerable concern and is a complaint that I frequently receive. At the moment I have three to four such issues pending in the village and although definitive proof is often elusive, there is evidence of substantial business being carried out within households without permission and to the frustration of neighbours.

We were pleased that our report was unanimously approved by the overview and scrutiny committee and trust that its recommendations will be supported by the council's executive.THIS AND OTHER LETTERS IN OUR DIGITAL EDITION