Plans for Mereham new town on our doorsteps do indeed bring concerns and challenges for the area – concerns perhaps for the challenges of providing for our own future needs. My own children are now of secondary school age and it is my hope that opportunit

Plans for Mereham new town on our doorsteps do indeed bring concerns and challenges for the area - concerns perhaps for the challenges of providing for our own future needs.

My own children are now of secondary school age and it is my hope that opportunities for employment and appropriate housing close to home will be available to them over the coming years.

We hear so much about children being forced to move away from their home towns in order to find housing and employment.

Your own article (page 5 - Sept 13) informs us that average house prices in Ely are substantially above the national average; these pressures filter out to the villages. There is no doubting that we are going to need considerably more houses now and in the future to house all the new families that will exist. Perhaps we should be focusing on ensuring that the infrastructure, (roads, doctors surgeries, schools shops etc.) which a development such as Mereham needs, are developed at this the planning stage.

The figure of 12,000 more cars on the road, if Mereham goes ahead, has been quoted. Which of us is going to prevent our children from learning to drive when, without adequate local housing and employment and public transport, they are going to need to join those 12,000? Do we in fact owe it to our children, grandchildren and future generations not to fight developments such as Mereham, but to work alongside developers such as Multiplex and the planners to ensure the best for all our futures?

ANDREW NORTHROP

Croftwood, Sutton