Sir – In last week's Herald under the heading "Scrap top-down planning system", a letter from Damian Hinds discusses a proposed new house building scheme in Alton, and makes the point that people resent being told that numbers of houses must be built in their area "just because someone in London said so".

He contrasts this with proposed Conservative Party policy, to scrap "top-down planning", which he suggests would be better achieved via "local democracy".

I must point out that a significant example of this lies just over the hill from Alton. The Whitehill Bordon Opportunity/Eco-town specifies a far larger housing development than at Alton, and has not come about just because someone in London said so.

Quite the contrary. It has come about because EHDC – a Conservative District Council – put forward Bordon as an eco-town, in response to a Labour Government big idea. Rather later they volunteered Bordon as a development area in the SE Strategic plan. I have no doubt they would claim that all this was the product of local democracy.

Damian Hinds talks approvingly of a consultative session involving Alton people in a useful debate about the housing development there. By contrast in Bordon, EHDC clearly don't want debate and have redefined the word consultation simply as an opportunity to tell us what we are going to get.

Public meetings about the eco-town, as mentioned by John Ilett in his letter in the same edition of the Herald, have had little to do with consulting and even less to do with the frequently claimed community support. If the previous masterplanners' consultation is anything to go by, this round will again offer local people the chance to provide suggestions along the proverbial lines of arranging just a few of the deck chairs on the Titanic,

Nobody has been asked whether they wanted to be on the ship in the first place. Nobody has asked whether Whitehill- Bordon residents want to share their town with 15,000 newcomers, or live on a building site for the next thirty years.

Or rather, when local people did have the opportunity earlier last year to choose numbers of houses, the majority vote was ignored.

So up to 5,500 houses – or six Grayshotts, to use John Ilett's illustration – are being planned for Whitehill-Bordon, just because someone in Petersfield said so. It has to be said that whether the someone is in London or Petersfield, the resentment is just the same.

Peter Parkinson, Shortheath Common,

Oakhanger, Bordon