Sir – On September 25 you published a letter from me which was prompted by a letter on August 21 from Dr Phil Holmes, of Brize Norton.

In his response to my letter (October 9) Dr Holmes says “we do not need any housing in either east or west of Carterton”.

In a letter to your sister paper, the Oxford Mail, someone who works at RAF Brize Norton addressed the points Dr Holmes made about employment opportunities and the availability of housing in Carterton.

He pointed out that many personnel who moved from RAF Lyneham are still living in temporary quarters at RAF Fairford and have to commute every day to RAF Brize Norton, while military and civilian support workers also commute from the area around Lyneham.

In short, Dr Holmes, the jobs may have moved here, but many of the people associated with them do not actually live here yet, as there is nowhere for them to live, so housing is needed.

The letter writer went on to point out that many of the jobs at RAF Brize Norton are not advertised at job centres or in the Witney Gazette, as they are usually advertised first internally by the main civilian contractors such as Serco, ISS, Airtanker and Turners, as well as in trade journals.

So Dr Holmes, there you have it from the horse’s mouth, with on-the-ground factual information from someone who actually works at RAF Brize Norton, rather than firing salvoes of misinformation from the sidelines.

And Dr Holmes still seems confused. After telling us new homes are not needed, in his final sentence he says: “Carterton West has ample space to expand.”

He has let the cat out of the bag. Brize Norton residents do not want Carterton East, even though the number of homes proposed has been reduced to 700, with a larger buffer of land being gifted to the parish council to prevent further development.

They want Crest Nicholson’s Carterton West scheme, with 1,000 houses in the next 15 or so years and thousands more in future years on what is a beautiful piece of countryside alongside the Shill Brook.

All of your readers know this and that is why I, along with 1,800 other Carterton residents, signed a petition against Carterton West. This petition was ignored by Carterton Town Council.

Julie Edgington, Rock Close, Carterton