THE use of RAF Little Rissington as a new glider school is a perfectly legitimate use for a military airfield which has been operational for over 60 years, and has been part of the local landscape for all of that time.

It is by far the least intrusive of all the uses it could be put to. It would appear by your reports that the MOD must now only operate at the behest of CDC and local NIMBY's who claim to speak for the local population.

I wonder if this is true. The opposition is certainly good at making a noise, but I strongly suspect that the great silent majority have no particular problem with the proposals.

The local NIMBY's it would appear want nothing at all to happen on the airfield, and I suspect most of them are incomers to the area, as long time locals lived here happily with the RAF Central Flying School. Nothing is not an option. The MOD will either use it or sell it.

Then what? A developer involved? Markets? Car racing etc? Will it really offend visitors? Do we really want any more tourists in the Cotswolds anyway? Bourton and Stow and their approach roads through local villages are already becoming hell on earth during the summer.

We are told that the proposals have nothing to do with defence. Not at the sharp end, maybe, but I cannot believe public money is being used to finance a private flying club, as is being claimed. There has to be an underlying military reason. Please can we have more realism, and less exaggeration and paranoia in regard to this matter.

The Cotswolds maybe an AONB, but it is also a working environment, and cannot be preserved just for tourism.

JKR LAWRENCE, Great Rissington, Gloucestershire.