A WEEK ago I noted how, to gain access to a field on which he hopes to build, a local developer near Harrogate ruthlessly obliterated a little garden tended by a widow, who had created it on spare ground with her husband.

"A triumph for the forces of commercialism,'' I observed. Forty miles to the north, those forces have mustered for a bigger strike.

Peel Airports Ltd is determined to develop greenfields next to Durham Tees Valley Airport as a large "business park". It insists that without this plum its plans to expand the airport will be jeopardised. Supportive noises from Darlington Borough Council, Teesside Business School and the North-East Chamber of Commerce suggest the deal is as good as done.

But an important principle is involved here. Britain is a small island. How much longer can we go on sacrificing greenfields, especially when, as with this project, brownfield sites exist nearby?

At some point a symbolic stand needs to be taken on behalf of our shrinking countryside. Against the ranks of Peel Airport and its allies let me pit John Betjeman.

Born 100 years ago this summer, "Betj" was prescient far beyond his pioneering advocacy of Victorian architecture. In 1963 he lamented the virtual loss of Middlesex to development. Describing how "concrete lamp standards, buses, and enormous lorries carrying mattresses and bulk liquids" had usurped a pretty scene of a cottage with an orchard, he forecast: "This is what every county in southern England and a good many in the north and midlands will soon become.''

He added: "For that reason every acre where there is still quiet and the smell of grass and the sound of brooks becomes more precious and essential for our recreation."

Wise words, which it is now urgent that we heed. For if we don't we will wake up one day to find ourselves in a total madhouse, from which only the (to most of us) distant national parks will offer any release - and that only briefly. Nationwide, there should now be a strong presumption against development on any greenfield, especially while brownfield alternatives remain more than plentiful.

Dare one say it - yes one dare - there are some of us, modern Luddites no doubt, even prepared to question whether the expansion of Durham Tees Valley Airport is a good thing anyway. Betjeman's vision of the hell that Middlesex had become actually included "the continuous roar of aeroplanes circling into London Airport". Is another Heathrow really a desirable objective?

Now a laugh - or rather two, although, sorry, neither signals anything funny.

Laugh 1: Claiming that, to gain a high conviction rate, the Crown Prosecution Service, now responsible for charging, often prefers a lesser charge to a serious one, and sometimes brings none at all, a London solicitor who often acts for criminals, says: "I can't believe it. I have seen clients laugh and walk away."

Laugh 2: Criticising Community Service, former circuit judge Keith Matthewman says: "It simply does not work. I have heard hardened criminals laughing at receiving such soft sentences, when they fully deserved to find themselves behind bars.''

Get this sorted, tough-on-crime Tony Blair.