WHY IS Newport city’s Labour-led council allowed to “sell off all our green space” on Newport’s Glebelands Park? Asks Ian Young (Argus 9.12.13). The answer is because it wants to, because it ignores Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), because it doesn’t care about our playing-fields, it doesn’t care about the chemically contaminated soil, traffic congestion and air pollution in our residential streets, and its generous gift of our Durham Road School’s land to the main developers.

Five years ago when the original house-builder pulled out, the plan boasted 150 “dwellings”, and now, according to Mr Young, it has multiplied to 248 “dwellings”! At a final Glebelands (school) planning meeting, the chairman, Labour councillor Miqdad Al-Nuami, rejected a suggestion by the committee of a “site visit”, resulting in the traffic nightmares etc, in Bank Street and the surrounding Caerleon Road area. On behalf of the leader of the Glebelands Action Residents Group, the late John Martin and fellow remaining campaigners it’s obvious that “We told you so!”

Brian Donovan Darlington Court Newport