CONGRATULATIONS to the Save Siston and Warmley Green Spaces Group on holding their excellent meeting on saving the greenbelt last week.

Hundreds of concerned residents determined to protect the local greenbelt from the Government's proposals to build tens of thousands of houses upon it turned up. The conference room was packed. There they heard speakers from organisations such as the National Trust on the importance of the greenbelt. It was a real pleasure to be invited along to speak also.

At the meeting, the group also released the results of its own consultation filled out by thousands of residents. It revealed overwhelming support for the greenbelt to be protected. It also demonstrated that people are not against new homes, but not on the greenbelt. It is a convincing mandate for politicians that they need to listen to the voices of local people. Next month, after the European election, it is expected that the Government will make its final decision on whether to build 8,000 new homes on the Kingswood greenbelt. However, only last week there was disappointing news that they have decided to build on the greenbelt in the South East and Oxfordshire.

We now await the Government's decision on whether they will build on the Kingswood greenbelt. Whatever that is, it is clear that the campaign for change must continue. We must ensure that the greenbelt is protected, and that the decision to build housing must be made by locally-elected councils who are accountable to the people who vote them in. And we must ensure that the process that has put our greenbelt at risk, the Regional Spatial Strategy, is consigned to the dustbin so that never again are we faced with the bizzarre prospect of an unelected quango deciding where to build homes upon local communities, without ever giving those communities a proper say in their future.

Chris Skidmore, Prospective Conservative MP, Kingswood.