I RECENTLY attended a public meeting about our local parishes' plan. It was very interesting, and I recommend others to attend theirs. I learned a lot.

With a rumoured 23,000 new homes to be built in Herefordshire, a lot of attitudes are going to have to change. I recently visited Plymouth (not a big city), and the local paper happily reported the changes due to the agreed 30,000 new homes to be built in the city. There are plans for substantial investment in three new shopping centres, industry and infrastructure. We already have a lot of this in place in Herefordshire - every town has frayed hoardings on greenfield sites advertising industrial sites yet to be built. The shopping centre in Herefordshire is at last being refurbished. But housing? There is a real crisis in the county.

Affordable housing for first-time buyers is still minimal, and social housing is underprovided. The moratorium on infill housing in all but 12 villages and towns in the county has crushed any new housing on to tiny sites with no parking or, often, gardens.

A friend, a working mother with three children, had to wait six months for social housing, as so few three-bed houses are available, and virtually no four-beds. Scarcity has caused house prices to escalate beyond reach of many.

With younger people having to cram into towns and large villages, open countryside has become the resort of the wealthy retired. Every farmer I know would be happy to sell a strip of land for housing alongside the village lanes, but planning laws prevent this.

We have a huge opportunity for attractive, carefully designed housing with parking and decent gardens, overlooking and protecting green islands of countryside, for everyone to enjoy as their own view. With building land becoming less precious, housing - especially self-build housing - would become cheaper, and thus improve the life of all working people in the county. Our newly-qualified vet daughter could then afford to build her own house in the countryside where she works.

Yet we do have absurd situations in the county. With this hunger for housing land, why is a huge new park being built at the bottom of Aylestone Hill? It would make a lovely site for housing. Local people don't want to see the loss of any more historic orchards, yet I can think of one brand-new orchard which should be tarmacked over. Our main hospital in Hereford, where parking is at an extreme premium, has, to the rear, a spacious new apple orchard on what used to be a car park. Why? And as for the Hereford by-pass, why are we still waiting for a decision? This is the 21st Century, and people in this county need cars, parking and roads to put them on. We need this housing and injection of young people into our countryside, so the sooner the council stops living in the past, the better for all of us.

Conservation is about preserving and enhancing our precious, lovely countryside, so that more people can enjoy the views over it, not just the rich retired people. They have children too - wake up, Herefordshire! We can make the most of this county, and still move forward into the future.

JULIA HAWKES-MOORE, Ullingswick.