Letter: It’s time to build a new town in New Forest

Your headline ‘NFDC’s difficulty on housing proposals’ (20th Dec) highlights the huge problem that New Forest District Council has in meeting the government's new proposals on new housing up from 521 (however government figures suggest the current figure is 729) a year in the current Local Plan to 1,465 a year.

This is also mirrored in Bournemouth Christchurch and Poole (BCP), up from 1,600 a year in the current draft Local Plan to 3,000 a year,

The reason behind this is shown in these figures from the Office for National Statistics which highlight the failure of both the Conservative and Labour governments to control immigration over the past 25 years as our population continues to grow.

There are two issues we have to deal with: reduce immigration in the future, and provide an increase in housing stock for our increased population.

Our cities and towns have a choice: build more densely within the city/town, build higher or build on the greenbelt or a combination of all three which I favour.

My proposals for better building would include a new garden town (one third for NFDC and two thirds for BCP) of 30,000 dwellings built around Sopley and Burley with 15,000 affordable homes and a large extra care village with 3,000 beds and a SEND school and associated mass transit system to BCP with all tramlines heading to Bournemouth University

The funding model is: buy at greenbelt value and sell at development land price. The profit is used for infrastructure and associated mass transit system.

We have to find a solution for the consequences of government failure on immigration control over the past 25 years.

What is better: take out 1,000 hectares of greenbelt or wreck every village/town of NFDC or BCP with more dense housing?

I suspect that the government will force through these changes to building more houses.

Geoff Bantock

Christchurch