Dr Robin Ladkin, of Lower Street, West Alvington, writes: I understand that there is plenty of local controversy about two major hotel developments, the Tides Reach at South Sands reported in last week's paper and the Cottage Hotel at Hope Cove. This argument has somehow collapsed into a binary choice between the economic benefits versus the environmental impact. We desperately need a planning control committee that is not similarly reduced to this oversimplistic and ­dysfunctional formulation. My attention was caught particularly by the remark attributed to Cllr Julian Brazil regarding the decision by the South Hams development management committee to approve the new Tides Reach Hotel: 'It was the economic argument that swayed it. I don't think anyone was that impressed with the design, but people obviously felt the ­economic benefits outweighed the visual impact.' It seems to me that this statement should disqualify the present committee from making such decisions on our behalf. Surely, the whole point of planning is to seek out and ­support good design, which under the guidance of the National Policy Planning Framework requires planning decisions that balance economic, environmental and social factors. The guidance does not ask, so far as I understand it, planning authorities to weigh one versus the others. I hear a consistent case for development. Both existing hotels need to be modernised and, potentially, expanded. Both are also situated in iconic locations within the Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. This combination of factors offers an opportunity for excellent architectural design, which is the discipline to apply an aesthetic appreciation to precisely such issues of balance. The architects' impressions that you have published in both cases show grotesque, ­modernist constructions that would look rather familiar in the rush to expand the tourist industry in such places as southern Spain and eastern Crete in the 1970s. A decision by our planning control committee in each case to reject such overbearing designs would not be a decision against economic interest, but rather a decision for good design. No doubt the developers would be persuaded by clear application of the NPPF guidance to think again and return with designs that meet their economic justification and blend in, even enhance, these locations, which are an integral part of our heritage. We are in danger of having a development management committee that, through binary decision-making in favour of economic factors, gradually erodes the fabric of the environment that attracts visitors in the first place. It is surely time for us to ­consider the membership of this crucial committee through application of the ballot box. The Gazette could do us all a favour by publishing the record of committee voting on such crucial planning decisions.