As I predicted, the Deane council have rubber stamped plans to force elderly and vulnerable tenants out of their homes to make way for intensive new housing development.

Homes in Parmin Close, Ruskin Close, and Victoria Gate will be flattened by the bulldozers and blocks of hundreds of flats will be built in their place.

While I am among the first to accept that we need to provide homes for local people which are affordable for them to rent or buy, and which offer the kind of facilities needed by frail and elderly tenants, the council is simply going about this in the wrong way.

We have to find the right sites for such development, not pick on a group of council tenants who, by and large, are unable to fight back because of their age or poor state of health.

Unfortunately, more bad news is on the way from the Deane council before the end of the month.

This time, it affects everybody who cares about our green and pleasant land.

They have drawn up a secret list of development sites for the 23,000 new homes that Gordon Brown’s Government is forcing on Taunton Deane.

Members of the council’s ruling Executive will consider this list in secret session on November 30. My fear is that they will rubber stamp it in the same way they have with Parmin Close, Ruskin Close, and Victoria Gate.

But this time, the shockwaves will be felt right across the Deane as the list contains green field sites which nobody would reasonably expect to be built on.

Already, there are rumblings, and a recent public meeting at Bishops Fox’s School for residents of the Mountfields Road and Mountfields Avenue area attracted around 200 people.

The Deane council may ride roughshod over the lives of its vulnerable tenants, but I wonder if they will get away with it when they take on the rest of the population.

Bear in mind this Lib Demcouncil is doing this at a time when Labour has put the 23,000 new homes on hold, and with David Cameron promising to scrap the plans altogether if he forms the next Government.

To find out about the Conservative approach to development, email me at mark@markformosa.com or visit www.markformosa.com