One of the best things the government has done is to speedily implement the promise to remove the blight of ‘garden grabbing’ from our towns.

But have they?

Here in Poole there is at present an application to build 10 one-bed semi-detached houses between two lines of 1930s detached properties to be put on the market for rented housing.

Conversations with the local council give the impression that the new powers granted to councils to thwart garden-grabbing are not yet in force.

However, Planning Policy Statement Three, dated June 2010, stated that private residential gardens shall be excluded from development.

Do they read all this stuff that the government issues?

While stressing that this is still only an application and has not been passed, there are worrying signs that it could well be nodded through at the next meeting in spite of residents’ objections.

A previous application was opposed by the council and then taken to appeal at the Department of The Environment, which also refused the appeal.

It appears that a process of wearing down the council is at work until they finally give up fighting the continuing applications.

There should be a limit to the number of applications to a site to avoid this situation.

Ken Webster, address supplied, Poole