I AM writing in response to the article entitled ‘Town plans may swallow up villages’ (November 24).

I am a resident of Houghton and Wyton so have a vested interest in the expansion of St Ives and how it will affect the surrounding area. However, I rather think that for there to be meetings for ‘concerned residents’ now, is a little late.

Outline planning permission for the houses that will be built nearest to the houses on Houghton Hill, and those forming a continuous run of houses from Houghton Hill into St Ives (albeit not on both sides of the road) was actually passed some considerable time ago. Have we not all been a little too slow to react?

In addition to this, though, I would like to suggest that there is a major issue here which no one seems to be mentioning – how is the local infrastructure going to cope with all this extra housing?

Anyone who travels between 8am and 9am and between 4.30pm and 5.30pm anywhere near St Ives and the A1123 in general will know how much traffic there already is, and I question that there is the capacity for any more to be added on a daily basis without causing gridlock.

Especially if this increased traffic is also going to be heading for the A14, which is a complete nightmare. It already takes at least an hour most days to travel less than 18 miles every morning between Houghton, Wyton and Cambridge.

To my mind, increased traffic is a far more worrying aspect of the expansion of St Ives than the fact that there will be houses at the top of Houghton Hill.

DEBBIE HALL

St Margaret’s Road

Wyton