THERE is just one week left to speak out against an invasion threatening to destroy a vast tract of beautiful Hertfordshire Green Belt and choke roads for miles around. If you love the countryside and want to preserve it for your children you have until

THERE is just one week left to speak out against an invasion threatening to destroy a vast tract of beautiful Hertfordshire Green Belt and choke roads for miles around.

If you love the countryside and want to preserve it for your children you have until June 12 to oppose a development that would turn a 10,000 hectare green buffer between Luton and Hitchin into urban sprawl.

Luton and Central Beds councils want to expand Luton into North Herts with 5,500 homes, a major bypass through Lilley Bottom valley to the airport, a park-and-ride, shops and an employment park. Beds councillors say they cannot meet their own government housing targets within their borders.

"It's imperative that everyone in Herts writes a letter," David Barnard, southern rural committee chairman at North Herts District Council said, "Not just one per household but one per person. They are getting 50 to 60 objections a day, but we need to get 5,000 - this would be considered a considerable sum."

Herts County Council and NHDC have pledged to fight the invasion at every step of the planning process. And Hitchin MP Peter Lilley is fighting the case in the Commons.

He told ministers on Monday: "If one council can meet its government housing targets at the expense of residents in another area, to whom it is not accountable electorally, that is the antithesis of local democracy.

"There are plenty of areas where building could be undertaken without going into another county. It was only when there was a degree of opposition from locals in those areas that councillors thought 'Let's put the houses in someone else's area where it doesn't matter if there's opposition, because they can't vote against us'."

You can join the fight and stop the planning process in its tracks by making Beds councillors hear the level of opposition in Comet country.

Write now to David Atkinson, Joint Technical Unit, 960 Capability Green, Luton LU1 2PE.

And join our campaign online and let everyone know why we should oppose this development. Just go to www.thecomet24.co.uk and click on the Stop The Luton Invasion button, have your say, and we will publish your comments.

Do nothing and fields, woods, wildlife, hamlets and villages will be buried forever.