I missed by a couple of hours the deadline for online ­comments in the public consultation over the Plymouth and South West Devon Joint Local Plan. It was closed before the given official deadline.

This is what I, and others I know, would have liked to say.

What we need in the South Hams is low-cost housing for local people, built near jobs

and transport and proper infrastructure, based on need, determined by sound, independent research.

What we do not need in the South Hams are expensive houses for second-homers, way beyond the means of locals most in need of housing, built for profit regardless of

local need, where there is no employment, spoiling the ­countryside with unneeded development.

Above all we need under-lying assumptions of the plan to be questioned:

What’s the assumption behind the numbers of houses ‘needed’ in south Devon?

Are those responsible for that assumption truly independent? Truly well informed?

What is the ratio of second homes ‘needed’ in this assumption?

What is the role of the unelected Local Enterprise Partnership?

Who appoints the LEP and what powers does it have and why?

Why is the LEP apparently so powerful, although unelected?

What advantage is there for local government to let ­developers build expensive housing that locals cannot afford and which often spoils the landscape?

What pressure comes from central government, directly or indirectly, to encourage this?

Minette Marrin

West Charleton