Residents in Queensbury have every right to be concerned about the way in which developers have been allowed to move on to green-belt land apparently unchallenged.

Huddersfield-based company PJ Wade Ltd., which owns the Albert Road reservoir and a field off Station Road, has outline planning permission for housing on the reservoir but has not applied for permission to change the nature of the field, which is on green-belt land. Residents, however, have complained that waste from the reservoir has been dumped on the land.

It isn't the first time that developers have moved on to green belt without getting permission. What is most alarming is that they appear to be able to continue unchecked. In this case enforcement officers have visited the site but seem to have done nothing to stop the tipping pending a retrospective planning application.

Something is badly wrong with a system which allows people to develop or damage so-called protected land and then ask afterwards for permission to do so. The enforcement officers and the Council should call a halt to all movement on the land until a planning application has been discussed and granted or denied.

The planning process is notoriously slow and by the time the application has gone through, a stretch of green-belt land might be irreparably damaged.

If we allow that to happen, where does it stop? What is to prevent a developer walking in and knocking down even a listed building and saying afterwards: "Ooops, sorry! We forgot to ask first. But is it OK?"

The planning authorities should find some teeth and enforce protection, at least until the matter has been properly discussed.