The subject of your article, Fury at renewed plan for housing' (August 28), relating to the development by Redcliffe Homes, called Brooklands between Patterdown and Rowden Lane, Chippenham, is an example of how planners and developers mislead the public and councillors to achieve their goals.

The DoE Inspectors' local structure plan review 1996 stipulations were based on careful consideration of the area, and understandable, given that properties surrounding the site consist of bungalows and small cottages, whose amenities and privacy would be destroyed by such towering monstrosities, stipulated that if the area was developed no property should be more than two storeys high, and the amenities and privacy of existing residents were to be protected.

Redcliffe Homes's latest planning application seeks to increase the height of the new dwellings to three storeys high by placing dormer windows in the roofs of the houses and, not as your article suggested, to add a window for a bathroom and increased porch height.

While you rightly reported that these new homes alongside the Ladyfield brook are situated in the middle of the River Avon flood plain, more concerning than this, is a soil test report in March 2007 by Robson Liddel for Redcliffe Homes, which reveals arsenic, lead, cyanide, hydrocarbons and a range of other dangerous toxins in the land at Brooklands.

According to the reports' plan, these toxins and carcinogenics could cause serious health risks by dermal contact, ingestion or inhalation by occupiers inside or outside these homes and the contamination report's conclusion stated: "There are unacceptable risks associated with this site".

A report by Wessex Water of April 24 2007, stated: "Contamination of the site is known. It is impossible to say whether or not the toxic contaminates will migrate to the water supply pipes and the nearby railway is a source of contamination."

I doubt the developers will alert prospective purchasers to such risks, but no doubt if granted, the extra floor will enable anyone surviving toxic contamination risk a place to retreat to during floods.

David Moriarty Rowden Road Chippenham