John Chalmers, chairman, South Hams Society, of Croft Road, Salcombe, writes: In the January 9 Gazette the District Council spokesman accuses Mr Osborne of misleading readers when he said that Our Plan should set limits on the size of installations in or close to the South Devon Area of Outstanding Natural beauty. He says there is no requirement to do this. Yet this is precisely what our Our Plan should seek to do. Its purpose is to provide guidance on the criteria for determining planning applications. And these criteria need to be as clear as possible to make just and consistent decisions. The National Planning Policy Framework states what should be in Our Plan. For renewable energy it states that local planning authorities should 'design their policies to... ensure that adverse impacts are addressed satisfactorily, including cumulative landscape and visual impacts', and that the LPA should 'identify suitable areas for renewable'. How are these policies best expressed? By placing limits on the size of installations in sensitive areas, such as an AONB. Other criteria are required for considering developments in AONBs. Paragraphs 115 and 116 of the NPPF state: 'Planning ­permission should be refused for major developments in these designated areas except in exceptional circumstances, where it can be demonstrated that they are in the public interest.' Our Plan points out that 44 per cent of planning applications in the South Hams lie within the South Devon AONB. The minister for planning has told us in a letter addressed to our MP, Sarah Wollaston, that what constitutes major development and public interest is to be defined by each LPA in its plan. So Our Plan must contain a definition of major development and what qualifies as public interest and how it is demonstrated. Again we need definitions that are as clear and exact as possible, preferably quantified. We are now more than halfway along the timescale set for completion of the plan. The newsletters issued so far describe the content of the plan, but do not tell us what any of these criteria will be – and the devil will be in these 'details'. Will there be time to consider these criteria – the real point of Our Plan? When will South Hams Council's strategic planners get down to it? They will have to do so very quickly if the plan is to be completed in 2015. Or will they dodge these questions and rely on vague generalisations that will foster the inconsistencies of the existing process?