ROBERT Key's "View from the Commons" in last week's Journal throws up many employment and housing statistics but the final requirement of possibly 16,000 new dwellings by 2020 is indeed alarming when balanced against environmental impact and the quality of life.

However, please do not blame the Regional Spatial Strategy (RSS) which proposed a much lower figure of 9,200 dwellings (an average of 460 per annum) for the Salisbury housing market area covering the 20-year period 2006-2026, not 2020 as quoted.

During the very lengthy and exhaustive RSS process, time and time again the pleas throughout the region were for more houses and particularly for many more affordable homes. Clearly this demand for houses to cater for economic growth as well as for accommodating people coming afresh to live in the south-west had to be considered against our concerns for the environment.

The next stage in the housing numbers game was the Examination in Public (EiP), an independent panel appointed by the Secretary of State, which held a comprehensive examination of the RSS over ten weeks in the middle of last year and called upon 191 organisations and people to give evidence.

The panel reported back to government last December and recommended an average 24 per cent increase over the proposed RSS housing numbers.

For the Salisbury area the numbers were increased by 34.8 per cent from 9,200 to 12,400 dwellings.

Now we read that the total could escalate to 16,000, some 74 per cent higher than the RSS.

As Robert Key says, Secretary of state Hazel Blears will consider the panel report and publish any changes she wants in the summer.

Following a further 12-week consultation the final decision will be announced in the autumn. Watch this space!

I also share Robert's distaste for incomprehensible titles like "Regional Spatial Strategy".

I tried to get a name change when a high-powered official from central government visited the south-west early in 2004 to explain the new planning system. I had no success; by then it had clearly been set in stone in whichever government department was responsible for planning at that time.

Parliamentarians and Whitehall officials alike should take heed that bureaucratic jargon baffles the electorate and puts them off politics.

At least the Local Government Association now recognises this nonsense and has ordered councils to avoid 100 of the worst offending terms and words.

With luck we may get some plain language from now on and so begin to understand what actually happens in government circles.

JULIAN JOHNSON, Chairman - Regional Assembly Planning & Transport