Stepehn Jope, of Elm Grove Road, Dawlish, writes:

Your paper recently reported Cllr Jeremy Christophers saying in relation to the emerging local plan: 'A certain vocal minority do not like the way things are going...'

How does he know if those people ARE in a minority? If people do not express an opinion nobody knows what they think.

I suspect that the opinons expressed are in fact very representative of the silnet majority, who are either absolutely horrified at the greatly excessive scale of development planned for the district , or would be if they had time to inform themselves of it.

Unfortunately, most people lead very busy llives (working, looking after children etc) and do not have the time to get involved in consultation exercises. Those people probably do not have a clue what is proposed. If only they knew.

There is a perception that making developers fund affordable housing increases their costs, forcing up the price of market housing and putting it out of financial reach of more people who then swell the numbers needing affordable housing.

If that perception is corret it proves the adage 'You can't get a quart out of a pint pot.' We desperately need a method of funding social housing whcih does not rely on building (large quantities of) market housing.

It surprises me that Teignbridge Council feels unable to impress that very forcefully and publicly on the government on behalf of local people preferably in conjunction with other councils (on behalf of their electorates), who must find themselves in a similar position and by dint of political pressure secure the necessary funds.

If the £9.3 billion spent on the Olympics had instead been added to the £6.5 billion the government claims to be currently spending on providing affordable housing, the total amount allocated for the latter would have easily been more than doubled. If the political will existed at Westminster adequate public funding for social housing would be found somehow, even in a recession.