West Worcestershire MP Harriett Baldwin has slammed the decision by an unelected planning inspector to require more house-building in the South Worcestershire Development Plan. The MP was speaking after learning that the Worcester City, Wychavon and Malvern Hills District Councils will have to go back to the drawing board on housing numbers after receiving a judgement from the Planning Inspectorate on proposed housing numbers. Harriett commented: "This is a terrible day for local democracy. All three councils have spent many months and thousands of pounds consulting local people and then putting the plan to a vote by each council. "As far as I can see the people have spoken through their democratically elected representatives. It defies logic that this process can be over-turned by an unelected bureaucrat working on numbers provided by housing developers. "Any prediction of future housing numbers reflects assumptions and opinion, not facts, and so there can be no right or wrong answer. The Planning Inspector should confine his examination to factual errors, not mediate on differences of opinion, because locally and democratically agreed numbers must prevail in a democracy. "I am a strong supporter of localism and that whole principle is undermined by this piece of news. The delay itself means that the local plan will have to be changed and in the meantime the National Planning Policy Framework takes precedence. I shall be raising my strongly worded concerns with the Minister yet again." Harriett raised the fears of planning inspectors' interference in a Westminster Hall debate only last week and with neighbouring MP Peter Luff she wrote to the Planning Inspector to lobby for him to rule only on matters of process rather than wider strategic issues. Harriett added: "This outcome is exactly as I feared when I quizzed the Minister last week on this issue. I will be working with my colleagues in Westminster to see what we can do to help our district councils to find a swift resolution to this issue."