When I was leader of Tendring Council, I counted Fred Nicholls as one of the good guys, honest and hardworking, but I must take issue with his letter bemoaning the planning appeals process.

He knows as well as I do the only way to reduce the amount of appeal decisions going against the planning committee is to put a local plan in place, with clear and evidenced policies with good land allocations to support them.

Alongside that, a community infrastructure levy document that sets out what is needed in terms of infrastructure and how new development will be expected to pay for this!

Or indeed, on the contrary, how development could not afford to pay for this and development would therefore be inappropriate in some cases.

However, like it or not, evidence suggests, as reported in the national press just days before Fred wrote his letter, that people want to live in Tendring, Clacton and Walton in particular.

Developers will look to supply for that demand.

The only way to control - notice I said control not stop - what is built is with a local plan and one that acknowledges the demand and doesn’t try to hide behind development in the wrong places.

By that I mean new homes in any amount in Weeley or on the edge of Colchester won’t negate demand for housing in other locations.

I watched in horror as councillors attempted to refuse a major housing development because of possible disruption to slow worms that may or may not be present.

No appeal inspector will protect homes for slow worms over homes for people - it’s laughable to suggest otherwise.

To defend a decision to refuse at appeal costs time and money and with little or no policy document in place, it’s like sending your troops to war in an ice cream van - you’re not gonna win.

So councillors, if you want to win at appeal, give your officers tin hats and not cornets.

Write a local plan and quick before it’s too late, if it’s not already!

Peter Halliday Gorse Lane, Clacton

  • Adult education isn’t dead in town

I READ with interest Alan Skinner’s letter published on August 25, and agree wholeheartedly with his sentiments about the importance of adult learning to individuals, their families and our communities.

However, I was concerned by Mr Skinner’s assertion that “Colchester no longer has its own specialist adult college, and the town-centre Learning Shop has now closed”.

Whilst it is true that opportunities for adult learning (in particular learning for leisure) are not what they once were – and this is entirely as a result of successive government funding cuts over the past ten years – there remain significant adult learning opportunities within Colchester.

Indeed, Colchester Institute maintains an offer of over 80 part-time programmes specifically for adults, ranging from maths to meditation, from complementary therapies to cake decorating and from French to fabrication and welding.

In addition to this, hundreds of adults also engage every year with our full and part-time degree courses.

Of the 1,100 or so undergraduate and postgraduate students studying within the newly-named University Centre Colchester, 420 (38 per cent) are over 25 years of age and some 170 (15 per cent) were over 40 years old.

Another perhaps surprising statistic is the number of adult apprentices studying at the college - 643 adults participated in apprenticeships during 2015/16, either with their existing employer or as part of a new role.

As for the Learning Shop, this has not been closed down – but has moved on to our Sheepen Road campus, where it remains a supportive and welcoming environment for the many adults who wish to improve their maths, English and employability skills – at no cost.

Similar facilities can be found at our Braintree and Clacton campuses and in our Learning Shops on Dovercourt High Street and in the Witham library.

Agreed, adult education does not have quite the same look and feel about it as it did ten years ago, but it is very much alive and kicking at Colchester Institute.

Alison Andreas Principal and chief executive Colchester Institute

  • Brexit ‘disaster’ is still looming

I was surprised to read Peter Cairns’ letter (No disaster has hit since Brexit, Letters September 1) as he seems to think that Brexit has taken place.

So far, all that has happened is that the country has voted for Brexit.

It not only has not started, the negotiations have not even begun.

We have seen a fall in the value of the pound which has meant good news for exports, but bad news for imports.

It will take more than two years for Brexit to be completed and only then shall we know if it is good for the country or the opposite.

43 years of membership of the EU means that there are many complicated arrangements, laws and regulations to be sorted out. The fact that there has been no disaster so far is unsurprising. Brexit has not even started yet.

John Hall Wittonwood Road, Frinton