HOW lucky for the Eastbourne area of Darlington that one of its councillors, Cllr Kevin Nicholson, is Cabinet Member for Housing at the borough council. He has used his position to veto a new housing scheme in his ward (Echo, May 5).

As readers will be aware, Whinfield and Haughton residents have been fighting a long campaign to have a 4,000 home scheme at Skerningham scrapped because of the obvious damage it would do to the environment, hiking up pollution levels with an added 10,000 cars per day onto Barmpton Lane, the destruction of ancient woodland and walkways and the decimation of local wildlife.

Unfortunately for us, our ward councillors are refusing to join our campaign despite near universal objections and Darlington Borough Council is determined to push the scheme through at all costs.

I hope that Cllr Nicholson will also use his position to support our community and have this ill-conceived scheme abandoned. If not, it is plain that there is one set of rules for his ward and the rest of us can go and hang.

Bev Hutchinson, Darlington