PEOPLE used to getting their own way never take kindly to being thwarted. So the fury emanating from Durham County Council and its business-community allies over the rejection of its mammoth development plan is no surprise.

The controversial document appears to come down to this: release huge swathes of virgin farmland, beloved of developers. Calculate how many factories, business units and shops these could support. Further estimate the number of jobs these could provide. Build new roads to ease expected pressure. Top off with new homes for the swarms of incomers. Hey presto – an economic miracle.

But also, probably, an environmental disaster. Durham’s councillors seem to have forgotten, or deliberately ignored, the county’s history over the last two centuries. Once as attractive a county as any in England, it wrecked itself for coal. Or rather it wrecked enough of itself to persuade the rest of the country it consisted entirely of pits – and thereby was the pits.

Of course the winning of coal did great things for Britain. But it didn’t do much for Durham, as JB Priestley grimly observed in his classic book English Journey. Ill health and hardship were the permanent lot of the pit communities, even if these also bred a compensating warmth and togetherness.

With the demise of coal the county recognised an opportunity. A clean-up programme already in progress was accelerated. Spectacularly successful along the coast following the end of dumping, it has greened many acres elsewhere. But the new plan drastically turns back the clock - go for growth and hang everything else.

A microcosm of the Durham that the fulfilled plan might create could be the Wynyard Estate of Sir John Hall, chief business cheerleader of the plan. Yes, he’s saved one of one of England’s greatest stately homes, Wynyard Park. But how secure its long term future might be in its changed setting, formerly a perfect picture of “squire’s England”, with neat farmland and shelter belts, but now exploited to the economic hilt with homes and factories (even a hospital was planned), is open to question.

But particularly sad is the plight of Durham City, target for most development, no doubt because it is seen as the strongest magnet for investors. And why is it strongest? Because it is a beautiful, historic city.

How strange that, unlike York, or even Darlington and Hartlepool (Durham towns let us remind ourselves) it doesn’t govern itself. Controlling its own destiny might deliver it to the care of councillors who realise its top priority - the key to sustained prosperity - should be the maintenance of a high quality environment – around, as well as within the city.

A plan is for people and, encouragingly, the strong community resistance to Durham’s gung-ho blueprint, some expressed in letters to this newspaper, suggests that the people of Durham recognise that the “cranes on the horizon” vision of Sir John Hall belongs to the past.

The inspector who rejected the plan deserves thanks for attempting to save Durham from itself. But with Sir John personally bending the ear of the Government, whose Chancellor, George Osborne, promises to “sit down with you John as well as local business and political leaders”, I wouldn’t bet on the community winning. Durham could embark on a tragedy.