Our rural idyll?

Today saw the Hallam landscape witness telling the inquiry his views on the landscape effects of importing a 1100 house suburb to Packington Nook.

Insisting that the site was lower-level than the other sites being promoted at Moneyhill and Burton Road, he tried to make a case that the attractive approach to Ashby from the south wasn't going to be too badly affected. Then saying that the presence of the A42 made a logical packet in which their development would neatly slot.

Chris Young, for the council then asked if he thought that this massive development was out of scale with the town. Hallam's witness said he didn't think it was massive. Well, maybe not in the context of some of their other developments on the side of Derby or Nottingham, but for Ashby there's no better way of describing a 25% increase in the size of the town.

Then shown attractive views photographed by the council's own landscape expert he was asked to confirm that houses would be built to spoil them. And those three-storey houses right next to the A42? Well they're not at all out of place, after all how are they going to shield the rest of the estate from the traffic noise!

Landscape is all very subjective. The experts can fight it out like art critics. But we live here and therefore are clearly not in any position to know what damage this development will do? Answers on a postcard please...