Most of us will have sympathy for people looking for a home. Most though will also view with disquiet the large number of new houses being arbitrarily forced on Watford, particularly as there seems to be no local say in what is desirable or possible.

It’s not just the megalithic blocks being built (see Watford Junction and Ascot Road, etc). The increasing population of the blocks in limited areas will make Watford’s existing problems much worse.

Most people in Watford are aware of them: transport and congestion, waste management, litter, availability of healthcare and schools are all cause for concern. Water restrictions are likely to lie ahead even before the new buildings arrive.

Without the benign reassurance of a Trump or a Wheeler, it’s not easy to deny the opinions of the majority of scientists, the United Nations Climate Change Summit, and our own personal experience: the earth is in trouble – warming, polluted and slowly dying - unless immediate and strenuous efforts take place. Many young people are rightly worried about their futures.

The increase in pollution of various sort from the new local residential blocks and denser populations will likely discount much of the local effort to restrict its destructive influence.

The country’s economic future is at the moment precarious and uncertain. It is linked to necessary annual increase in production and consumption - for ever: there are clear reasons why these are impossible.

At the moment the petty infighting of our politicians is disguising a much more ominous threat to all our futures – the future of the planet itself. The large mandatory increase in housing quotas is a very bad step for Watford and all our lives.

Bob Wallace

Watford