SIR. Those who supported Chessington Garden Centre's planning application on the grounds that it had "environmentally friendly" features ignore the stark and appalling facts.

The application was to nearly double the spread of buildings on the site (to nearly 7,000sq m), have almost as much additional covered and uncovered sales areas and to more than double the number of tarmacked car parking spaces to 380. On top of that they also wanted more than 5,000sq m of gravelled car park. By no stretch of the imagination was this a "green" planning application. The proposal was larger than Tesco for Tolworth.

It is Kingston councillors' shame that they did not reject the application but to the Mayor of London's credit that he did, to conserve the green belt.

Steve Cochran Chessington