Sir,
I refer to your front page headline in last week's Observer regarding the National Park's decision to permit night-firing at the Manorbier range.
A comprehensive range of objections was put by the 12 local residents, including myself, who spoke against the night firing proposal at the meeting of the National Park Development Control Committee on May 17.
Notwithstanding the amount of research and effort that went into the 'three minutes only' presentation by each objector, many of whom had never before spoken in public, the result appeared to be a foregone conclusion.
Members of the committee seemed unable to take on board the points raised by the objectors, perhaps because they had been already heavily influenced by a brief containing six pages of uncritical text detailing the MoD case offset by only a few lines outlining that of the opposition.
One member appeared more concerned with his own invasion of privacy by a police helicopter at his come in Cardiff, another spoke of his extensive knowledge of occasional low-flying aircraft over north Pembrokeshire, while another droned on about the Castlemartin range: all irrelevant of course when the issue before them was night-firing at Manorbier. The latter includes noise pollution from target drones as well as missiles, but the community also suffers from extremely noisy low- flying aircraft targeted on the village.
Apart from two notable exceptions, members of the committee did not seem to understand the effect the proposal would have on the health and welfare of the community and the tourist economy in the area. It would appear that on this evidence, and following other recent planning decisions, it is now falling on the shoulders of residents to highlight the published policies of the National Park.
According to the authority's own newspaper, Coast to Coast, 'National Park status has brought the highest measure of protection to a coastline and landscape rightly regarded as one of the finest in Europe'. It is disappointing, and possibly terminal for the future of the park, to discover that members of the authority seem unaware of their own published objectives.
Pearl McCabe, Manorbier.