LABOUR’S Peter Sopowski (In My View, November 18) tries to take issues with New Forest East MP Julian Lewis over the national park authority’s lack of democratic legitimacy. But what would Mr Sopowski know about democracy? Moreover, his dismissive and patronising attitude to thousands of horse owners and dog walkers who have packed meetings and signed huge petitions against what the NPA are doing shows just how out of tough he is with the concerns of those who live and work in the Forest.

Our hardworking local MPs and brilliant Forest Uprising group are to be congratulated on leading the opposition to the NPA’s crazy bureaucratic utopianism.

DOROTHY FUDGE, Totton