Sir – I refer to the letter ‘Smaller developments can meet homes need’ by Nick Hobbs (Gazette, September 10).

I concur with the underlying sentiment of his letter that inconsistency seems to exist within the West Oxfordshire District Council’s decision-making policies where planning is concerned.

I write to you as someone with a vested interest in a proposed development of 20 houses in North Leigh, which was turned down earlier this year.

Sites have been green-lit when they face flooding issues, foul water problems and highways concerns.

They have been passed when they have no real infrastructure in place to cope with the impending growth of the population.

At North Leigh we had no flooding concerns, a main sewer runs through the site which Thames Water was happy for us to connect into, the county council highways department was happy with our proposal and saw no issues with it.

The site was clearly in-filling from the existing developments of the village, but this was cleverly dismissed by the cropping of photographs at the refusal presentation.

Another factor brought out to justify the application’s refusal was that the site could be seen from both Church Lane and Boddington Lane.

We conducted our own test, using a flashing beacon mounted on top of a 12m crane. We visited each location and couldn’t see the beacon. This crane was in place during the official site visit, but no one even attempted to view the site from either location.

Our site was in a perfect location for car and public transport routes to Oxford and beyond, and would have been small enough to have not been detrimental or to have created a negative impact to the village itself.

We were also offering 50 per cent affordable housing on the site, to accommodate young and first-time buyers with an accessible way in to the housing market.

While it would be easy to dismiss my letter as sour grapes due to the refusal of consent for this scheme, I can assure you whole-heartedly it is not.

It is high time some fairness and consistency was brought into the district council’s decisions on planning matters.

Paul Glenister, Brookside, Little Clanfield