LETTER OF THE DAY: Nightmare scenario for our city

The column by Clive Smith states in very explicit, common sense language, the huge problems posed by the increase in the city's population (More people in city simply means even more problems, Mar 20).
Traffic gridlock around City Hospital hours before Royal visit. ENGEMN00120121128102456Traffic gridlock around City Hospital hours before Royal visit. ENGEMN00120121128102456
Traffic gridlock around City Hospital hours before Royal visit. ENGEMN00120121128102456

But this is not just by natural growth. It is planned in the Local Plan currently being prepared, which was put out for public consultation last year and the figures are shocking.

To be exact, 17,020 new homes is the target for the city, and 45,000 for the whole ‘Portsmouth housing market area’ up to 2035.

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If there is an average of 1.5 cars per household in these new homes, then the total additional vehicles on the already congested network will be 67,500.

And that doesn’t include all the additional arterial traffic, such as online delivery vans, which are clogging up the system.

And what about the other crumbling services Clive describes so alarmingly?

He refers to ‘The Walking Dead’ which just about sums up the nightmare scenario for our future in the next two decades.

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Alec Mathews’ letter of March 15 - Lunacy beyond parody – raised the same issues about the Havant building blight.

To quote ‘How the powers-that-be have the temerity to pretend there is any kind of planning involved in this lunacy, is beyond parody’.

Surely something should be done about this strategic lunacy?

Jerry Bamforth

Sennen Place, Port Solent