Everyone who has ever lived in a home in a semi-rural location with attractive views will sympathise with the Riddlesden residents who are campaigning against house-building alongside the Leeds-Liverpool canal.

Now that preparations are underway at the site off Swine Lane for the 400-home development, the penny has dropped that their quality of life is about to change and that one of the reasons they chose to live there - the view - is going to be damaged.

Sadly, this is not a unique experience. It has happened in Silsden, Gilstead, Thackley, Apperley Bridge, Clayton, Thornton, Wilsden, Queensbury and many more places. Under the terms of the Unitary Development Plan, it will happen to an even greater extent in areas which are equally or even more attractive.

While developers pounce on these locations with an eye to the substantial profits to be made on executive homes for commuters, the people who grew up in these areas or chose to live there because of the attractive environment are not offered any sort of compensation for the loss of facility or quality of life.

Houses do have to be built somewhere, given the growing population of the Bradford district. But clearly still not enough is being done to make use of land near the centre of the city, where we need people to live to help the city centre to thrive.

This is not necessarily former industrial "brownfield" land. There are plenty of areas of poor-quality housing, some of it semi-derelict, which could be redeveloped. Much more needs to be done to facilitate that process before much more of Bradford's green and pleasant countryside is eaten away.