SO Bill Wiggin (Ledbury Reporter, June 9) has exposed some of the anomalies in planning that enable soft-fruit growers to cover our beautiful countryside with second-hand mobile homes and polytunnels and has been widely accused of being anti-farmer.
These growers are not farmers in the traditional sense but are industrial producers of non-essential foodstuffs for supermarkets.
The loophole in the planning system that allows farmers to place hundreds of caravans in open countryside for casual workers was a concession in the Second World War to encourage the growth of essential foodstuff to feed a starving nation. This is no longer the case and it is long overdue that Government change planning law. Strawberries at Christmas are not vital to our well-being.
However, Mr Wiggin should be aware that it was a Conservative-controlled Herefordshire Council that opted for, in my view, a weak-kneed voluntary code of conduct and did not insist planning permission should be required for polytunnels. It is time for change.
Barry Ashton, Old Church Road, Colwall.
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