I live in the leafy "bush capital" of Australia. As a boy, I lived in High Salvington and roamed over the Downs, crossing the A24 and climbing up to Cissbury, then over the Golf Course and through the Woodlands to the north of the A27.

Any planning committee that considers destroying the natural countryside must be doing it for long-term financial gain.

It is time for such committees to take a really good look at themselves and see what would be lost forever.

You may say I have no right to support the protection of the Downs, writing from Australia.

I do, insofar as my family still lives in the High Salvington area and it matters that all downland be protected from further development.

-Mike Piercy, Canberra, Australia