PHILIP Norman's letter (December 8) will doubtless cause outrage to some readers. It is in places quite intemperate, but nevertheless it refers to certain points which have been worrying me for a long time, ie: infrastructure and pressure on natural resources.

In the same issue of the SAM we saw reports of the Greater Manchester Spatial Framework and its threat to our local green belt and open spaces. This is driven by population rise, and the same process will be going on wherever else in the UK these combined authorities have been planned or have already been set up.

Alarm at the loss of such open space is often sneeringly dismissed as 'nimby', but the issue is much more important than preserving local nice views.

Much of our green belt used to be farmed 50 years ago by small farmers who since that time have been steadily squeezed out of production by the growth of today's huge supermarkets. These oligopolies have effectively locked up the food supply, and decide what we get and where it comes from.

In recent years, a demand for locally grown produce has arisen, notably from independent new cafes, bars , small restaurants and the like, plus that which can be purchased by the public at farmers markets.

The problem here is that it is seen as elitist, 'niche', dearer, and not for those on modest incomes. So it needs to be democratized and cheapened in some way. Local food means low "food miles", and it's fresher and more nourishing than stuff which spends ages in a long supply line.

But to have more of it we need to protect our local open space. Just think how much local produce could be grown on Davenport Green for the places around it, notably Wythenshawe, a town of 77,000 people. Green areas especially with trees help with our air quality.

At national level the UK grows 62 per cent of its own food; 25 years ago this was 80 per cent - a safe figure to have stayed at. However, even this 62 per cent must fall quite signficantly when HS2 and the eleven new garden cities called for by Will Hutton all get built. So, we have a rising population and falling domestic food production. Yet lots of people call for energy security on the explicit basis of not being able to trust foreign suppliers, but - incredibly - no one applies this same argument to our food supplies.

Globally, large acreages of farmland are being ruined by drought and desertification at one end of the scale, and at the other by rising sea levels, rendering land too saline to grow anything worthwhile or even at all.

It seems that none of the UK's farmland will be thus affected, and as such will be able to feed us for ever so long as we care for it; so what do we do? Plan to build on lots of it ! This is grossly irresponsible because there is enough brownfield site in the UK for over one million homes.

We have a moral duty as a country to protect all our farmland - as well as good open land not currently farmed - so as to avoid becoming a selfish Western country burdening the global food markets with our massive needs for imports, thus pushing up prices for much poorer countries unable (but wishing) to grow their own. I understand that much of our farmland has been worked very hard over recent years (a form of "sweating the assets"), so some currently unused open land could well be needed for cultivation, to 'rest' some existing acreages.

All of our current planning seems to be obsessed purely with economic growth (which in the past 30 years has sent most of the benefits to a quite narrow top section of society), to the almost total disregard of the environmental consequences. People make a fuss over loss of open space precisely because it is an elemental decision. Once destroyed, you cannot get it back.

Peter Thompson.

Altrincham.