'More houses mean more emissions and busier roads' - Your Letters: January 23

HOMES GROWTH NEEDS TRANSPORT

It is clear from the inspectors’ rejection of Shropshire's Local Plan that the government wants more houses built, with a particular focus on those facilitating overspill from the West Midlands conurbation.

All these houses will generate more traffic on limited road space. Consider the development of the Ironbridge Power Station site as but one example. Most of these houses will generate two cars each with no credible transport alternative in this environmentally-sensitive area.

You'd think that at some point the Secretary of State might wake up to the fact that more houses mean more emissions and busier roads and provide funding that allows, as it does in the Metropolitan areas, the development of better bus and rail services.

In reality, it's build more houses with no extra money to give people an alternative to the car. There's much said in Government about the need to make public transport the 'preferred choice', but fine words are nothing without the financial means to do it.