NOW that all the general and local election brouhaha is subsiding maybe our town/district/county councils in Bucks can settle down and do some perceptive, visionary thinking about the future.

For instance, is it sensible just to let the district grow haphazardly at the whim of any prospective housebuilder who wants to maximise the investment on any bit of land he has managed to acquire?

Wouldn't it be wonderful if our Wycombe district now made a really positive gesture towards reducing global warming?

Putting aside, for a moment, our political or ideological fixations we ought to consider making a contribution to more rational "Green Power Generation" for the future For example, if every new house was required to have enough solar panels on its roof to make it independent of general power supplies that would be really wonderful.

The last Labour government suggested that five more atomic power stations should be built because the existing ones are soon coming to the end of their lives.

However they did not mention the fact that, after some 50 years, no solution has been offered for adequate storage of the nuclear waste we already have in increasing amounts!.

It is already half a million cubic metres enough to fill five Albert Halls.

They say it is liable to be radioactive for the next 50 years.

Just where those stocks are located is not public knowledge so you may have some just across your hedge.

We have to spend more on solar and sea-wave electrical generation rather than just create more and more radioactive waste.

It is an opportunity for our councils to set off a national trend if they would just require adequate solar panels on every new house which they approve.

As demand increases prices will drop and, who knows, we may get a solar panel factory on one of our trading estates rather than, as now, where BP have decided to build such a factory in Spain because the Spanish Government is much more co-operative and perceptive of the future.

Bill Purdie, Marlow