I CONGRATULATE Steve Dancey for his Comment on 13 December, identifying the future demographic plight of Andover.

How have we arrived at this sad predicament?

The root cause at a national level is our membership of the EU. Allowing the current and future scale of immigration is a major mistake.

At a local level, it is the weakness of our local politicians who find it difficult to say ‘no’ to damaging expansion plans.

A word of warning to the many groups that will be fighting the many plans – learn from the Megashed.

Heaven and earth was moved at great cost to make all the necessary infrastructure changes.

Yet we are still waiting for the promised noise reduction measures along the A303. Any willingness to compromise on developments will be crushed.

Big business and vested interests will trample all over your quality of life.

John Carins, Honeysuckle Gardens, Andover