Last week, Eileen Berry (Chronicle, September 7), expressed her concern about the impact of diverting the Andover Road through the new Kings Barton housing estate.

It is a concern I share. However, I was astonished to discover that the builders seem to have been sitting in the long grass watching the snails whizz by: 2,000 homes are planned, but the 650th is not due to be finished until mid-2025. 

So it will be 18 months before the development is even one-third complete. This ties in with recent reports in the press that, nationally, planning permission has been granted for more than a million homes on sites where development has yet to be started. 

Meanwhile, the developers howl for more green-field sites to be given to them and Parliament has just thrown out the legislation that was designed to ensure that new developments do not have an adverse impact on local water quality. All in the interest of “building more houses”.

Yes, we do need to build more houses, and people talk about the “Housing Crisis”, but the will to solve it does not exist. It is not in the builders' interest to build more, as the prices would fall and the value of your house and mine would fall in parallel. Anyway, the “Crisis” does not matter, because it only really affects young people and young people do not vote.

The only solution to the 'Housing Crisis' would be a plan so shocking, that I hardly dare put it into print. It is to build a great deal on Social Housing.

Roger Stevens,
Cliff Way, 
Compton 

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