Daily Express Comment - John Ingham

I became an eco-warrior last weekend. As the first summer warblers broke into song my wife, teenage son and I, plus dog, joined 45 others in direct action at the WBB Minerals Quarry in Bletchingley, Surrey.
We were protesting because the company is considering letting Tarmac build a huge mortar plant in its quarry ' in the Green Belt and by an area of outstanding natural beauty.
By forming a human barrier across the road, we forced the quarry's closure for the morning. However, there was not a Swampy in sight. There were no pins through noses, no grungey dreadlocks ' and there were more Barbours than combat trousers.
We are not alone. Up and down the country a generation is being radicalised. Readers from Salisbury in Wiltshire to Hucknall in Nottinghamshire and Goole in Yorkshire are up in arms at the way unwanted developments are being foisted upon them. Many are driven to risk arrest on protests for one reason: they have no faith in their politicians.
In the country that boasts the Mother of Parliaments, there is a democratic deficit at local level.
Seven miles away from the site of our protest, still in Surrey, ordinary people were also out demonstrating yesterday as a Government inspector began scrutinising Tandridge Council's carefully constructed 10-year development plan.
Developers eager to build hundreds of homes on Green Belt are already lining up to bend his ear.
Meanwhile, Gordon Brown's flagship eco-towns policy will effectively see central Government choose their locations.
This democratic deficit will only get worse. Our control freak Government wants unelected regional development agencies to dictate where major projects should be built.
There is no point in local government if remote, uncaring central Government can trample over local residents' wishes.
So across Britain, the WBB Minerals of this world be warned:
Do the decent thing or face relentless direct action.