Your report on the Government’s housing delivery test showed how Watford MP Dean Russell tries to have things both ways on planning. When the Government confirmed the algorithm that set Watford’s target for new homes of 800 a year, he went out of his way to welcome this. Yet now he attacks the Lib Dem Mayor and council for not doing more to oppose the targets that his government has imposed.

This obvious self-contradiction is his attempt to wriggle out of explaining why the Government has told Watford Council for the second year running it should be building twice as many new homes as have actually been completed – something not many Watford residents would agree with.

Other MPs, including ones from his party, have fought for their constituencies against what they see as unfair government targets. Sometimes they have even forced changes in government policy. Why does Watford’s MP not speak up for our town and support Mayor Peter Taylor’s call for the system for calculating the targets to be changed? Instead, he cravenly supports government policy that forces dramatic and unwelcome changes on our town.

Iain Sharpe

Oxhey Road, Watford