I HAVE read with interest the recent discussion over the Local Plan for housing development in Test Valley which I understand calls for over 10,000 new houses by 2029.

Clearly this is having a significant impact on Andover with considerable development around the Picket Piece area on, what has always appeared to me to be, agricultural land.

What happens after 2029, does another swathe of countryside get allocated for another 10,000 houses and why do politicians believe they can build us out of the housing crisis? To my knowledge, since the war all governments have had house building policies that have never solved the problem since the population has increased faster than houses were being built.

The argument over whether the Local Plan is good or bad is somewhat irrelevant; those houses will be built because I assume TVBC is obliged to carry out government housing policy, but what of the future? A high profile house building policy from central government to ‘solve the housing crisis’ is always going to be a crowd pleaser but is not going to work. The only true solution is for our political leaders to declare a target population for our relatively small country and implement policies to achieve this. Of course this would be labelled ‘population control’ by opposition groups and would be political suicide. So I suppose I can answer my own question, we will see more of our countryside around Andover taken for the policy of relentless housing building.

Ed Treadwell, Chilbolton