IT is good to see my new MP, Connor Burns, up and running (MP asks government to look at Talbot Village Trust Development, Daily Echo, June 10).

During the elections he made much of his party credentials with all the influence this would bring us under the new Conservative government. So hopefully getting the Conservative minister to call in this Talbot Village housing development shouldn’t be too much trouble for him.

I do wonder, though.

At Westminster, Connor Burns is just one of 306 Conservative MPs. His influence would surely have been better directed at Poole council where the consent for this development was approved by just five Conservative councillors Not for the first time, Poole councillors voted on party lines. Three Liberal Democrats voted against and one Lib Dem abstained.

An appeal to the minister may bear fruit but nipping the thing in the bud and ending all the community anguish was surely the priority.

Yet if Mr Burns’ powers of persuasion could not convince even one of those five Conservative councillors, should we hold out much hope?

DR MARTIN RODGER, Bloxworth Road, Parkstone, Poole