The planned care home and residential accommodation on the edge of North Berwick sounds more like a huge care home now than a retirement village.

We can obtain a copy of the environmental impact report for £200 (are you kidding?) or a CD copy for £25.

Environment – well that is surroundings, air, land, scene, climate, ambience, atmosphere, and ‘the lie of the land’ according to my dictionary.

The lie of the developers might be more accurate.

Do they think we are incapable of assessing what effect a development such as this would have on this entire area – air, land and all that implies?

Fields of good crops gone, wildlife probably gone, habitat of many varied birds and wildlife gone, fewer wildflowers, butterflies and insects, more air pollution, more traffic, more people, dark night sky filled with street lighting, roads and infrastructure, electricity, water and sewage supplies all impinging on our environment.

I could go on ad infinitum but have done it before.

How many times do we have to say it?

Our countryside is vital to us, as many of us have found out in the last few months.

Once built on, fields can never be recovered.

Trees planted (they say) will not reach maturity for many, many years, if at all.

In one of their plans it said that there were lots of little country lanes there – well not that I know of, so access off the A198.

Views I am told are not important – well they are to most of us, but apparently they don’t count.

I don’t wish to invest in their printed assessment – I have made my own assessment and it is more than adequate.

It is no, no, no.

In these difficult times, more and more people have realised how much countryside matters and we cannot afford to lose any more to developments like this.

Pat Morris (Mrs),

Hopetoun Terrace,

Gullane