It won’t solve housing problem

They say that ‘the pen is mightier than the sword’, which is just as well. As much as I would like to oblige Rosemary Sealey and become her ‘sparring partner’ [Letters, Jan 27], I fear my advanced years preclude this.

However, as a chartered engineer this does not stop me from preferring practical solutions to problems, rather than relying on ‘wishful thinking’.

As a long-time member of both the National Trust and SPAB (The Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings), I also would like Britain to be just a green and pleasant land with small cities, towns and villages’, but these will not house all 68 million of us.

Milton Keynes was a practical solution which housed nearly 300,000 people that otherwise would have been crammed into London. So I find it surprising that a proposed solution to Canterbury’s housing problem is to build more homes in its already crowded centre, when there is ample commercial property lying empty that could be converted for domestic use.

We have had a shortage of new housing ever since the Second World War, but the situation became much worse after Margaret Thatcher’s and subsequent governments opposed the building of social housing by councils by restricting their funding.

I also agree that we should not need to import so much produce from the EU when we can grow it ourselves, but the queues of lorries at Dover are not caused by this, but by us being led to believe that we would be better off leaving the Customs Union, even though the EU is by far our largest trading partner.

Wishful thinking is not in itself a bad thing; it is only when it is abused by those who use it to further their own political ambitions, that the troubles start. We thought that in leaving the EU we would ‘take back control’ and solve the financial problems for the NHS.

‘I feel sure that Her Majesty will have come across many characters like our regimental drill sergeant in her 70-year reign, but no doubt showing more control no matter how bizarre the situation’

Weare now beginning to realise that we have even less control over external affairs, and our financial situation is, if anything, deteriorating.

An example of the much older saying, attributed to the Greeks: “Beware what you wish for, lest it come true?”

Mike Armstrong

Queens Avenue, Canterbury