Your article, “Protest against housing estate bid” (The Argus, May 9), concentrated on the incorrect notion that planning committees are bound by a “presumption in favour of sustainable development”.

In 1983 the Brundtland commission was created by the World Commission on Environment and Development, to address growing concern about the accelerating deterioration of the human environment and natural resources, and the consequences of that deterioration for economic and social development.

What came out of this, was the expression “sustainable development”. This is defined as “a pattern of resource use that aims to meet human needs while preserving the environment so that these needs can be met not only in the present but also for generations to come”.

How does that fit in with the current pattern of housing development? Not very well, I am afraid.

The document always being referred to when dealing with “sustainable development” is the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) issued in March 2012.

This document attempts to simplify the planning system, and refers to the term “sustainable development” no less than 53 times. However, apart from a reference to the Brundtland commission, it fails to offer a single definition of what sustainable development actually is or how it can be measured.

The only thing we can say for certain about housing development is that we need more “affordable” housing. Will we get it? Almost certainly not. Councils throughout the UK have their own targets for this, with some set as low as only 20% of new build given over to low-cost housing.

The other 80% is high-cost, luxury housing, fulfilling not the needs for society but the insatiable greed of faceless property developers.

They do this by building on the very green fields that, according to the Brundtland concept of “sustainable development”, are the birthright of future generations.

Don McBeth, Common Lane, Ditchling