Viewers of BBC One yesterday evening saw Laurence Llewelyn- Bowen take to the skies above Bristol in a hot air balloon to discuss the issue of the city encroaching onto greenbelt land.

As the Post has reported, 100,000 new homes are planned to be built in Bristol over the next 20 years, with 10,000 homes earmarked just outside Dundry alone.

Llewelyn-Bowen took the view that building on greenbelt land around Bristol would be very wrong indeed.

On In Search of England's Green and Pleasant Land, he said: "This is the scariest possible precedent to be starting. If you can get away with it, no greenbelt in the country is safe."

Floating above Queen Square, Llewelyn-Bowen compared the "elegant" town planning of much of the city centre with the sprawl of much of the southern suburbs including Bedminster and Ashton which he described as "more brutal, uncompromising and urban".