SIR - Chris Corcoran (Chronicle letters, May 31) wonders where all the protesters have gone. Perhaps I can explain.

Firstly, the Bar End meadow was created at public expense on former by-pass land, in 1994 as compensation for the loss of Twyford Down. No such promise was ever made vis-à-vis the Hockley site, and unlike the Bar End project, the Hockley site was chosen as the "least bad" site following extensive public consultation last year.

Secondly, what with Barton Farm, Silver Hill, Waitrose at Weeke, and other controversial proposed developments, perhaps there are just too many pressing causes for battle-scarred veterans such as Messrs Story and Weeks to get worked up about the possibility that a handful of the 20,000 motorists speeding daily towards Southampton (arriving some 12 minutes earlier than they would have arrived pre-1994) may care a hoot, should they notice in the corner of their eye, that one more green field has vanished beneath tarmac.

And finally, perhaps those of us who try to live a life that does not require the proliferation of motorways, airports, car parks, power stations and large scale housing projects, are sick and tired of being pushed around by bureaucrats and labelled hippies, dirty dropouts, filthy anarchists and worse, only to be expected to forgive all and become eco-warriors risking assault and arrest when the consequences of Middle-England's complacency and material greed come home to roost in its own backyard.

Frank Williams, The Dome, Old Morestead Road, Winchester.