HELPING out at the Transition City launch on Saturday I took it upon myself to print off some “Save The Meadows” posters for the public to take home.

They went like hot cakes, and I wish I’d had a petition as well, because I kept being asked where objectors could sign up. Cynics may argue that people who attend this type of event are bound to take a keener-than-average interest in environmental arguments.

But the proposed development of 100 homes on the Britford Lane meadows in Harnham has attracted more widespread opposition, as the Journal letters page has reflected.

If it gets the nod, we can kiss goodbye to one of the loveliest views into our historic city, along with much of the wildlife that finds a refuge in the “green belt” protecting us from flooding and extending from Southampton Road to Netherhampton.

As he himself acknowledges, there’s no guarantee that whoever buys the land will stick to the “high quality” design aspirations of St Nicholas Hospital board chairman Chris Dragonetti, or meet the target of 40 per cent affordable homes. Unless, of course, planners make them shoehorn in a couple of blocks of flats.

I confess to my mind boggling when I read Mr Dragonetti’s defence of the scheme to the Journal. If he didn’t have his charity hat on, he said, he might well “hold a similar view” to that of the objectors. But it was his duty to raise as much loot as possible.

Since his is a strictly Christian organisation, I can’t resist a bit of sermonising. There is always an alternative to doing something morally repugnant, and that is to walk away.

Those of us who oppose this wanton destruction have a duty, too – to carry on letting our leaders know at every opportunity that we find it unacceptable.

There are, after all, brownfield sites remaining empty.

“We are not the National Trust,” said Mr Dragonetti. “We don’t own this land for the benefit of society.”

More’s the pity. It makes you realise what a wonderful organisation the Trust is, and how much it’s needed.

The Earl of Radnor’s Longford Estate, meanwhile, is keeping mum and letting the charity take the flak despite having a huge financial interest in this development. If the Earl considers scenic beauty to be of so little account, let’s have a new estate in the grounds of his ancestral pile instead.

No? How about the Woodford Valley then? Plenty of green fields out there.

I thought not. There’s one rule for the rich and powerful and their pals, and another one entirely for less exalted beings, ie. you and me.

anneriddle36@gmail.com