I refer to the letter printed in your edition of August 14 by my namesake Howard Lamb in which he comments on the growing number of domestic developments in Harrow, particularly of flats and apartments.
This rings a bell with me as recently we have in our part of the borough fought and sadly lost a campaign to reduce the size and density of a redevelopment.
Our fight never went to appeal as the council ruled in favour of the build, although we all knew the cost of a possible failed appeal had much to do with this decision.
Having lived here for most of my life I have witnessed the ongoing destruction of this once proud and green borough to the extent that it will very soon become nothing more than a faceless, characterless satelite of London.
I can only assume that the council, in the guise of providing homes, sees the benefit of the increased council tax take as the justification for its actions.
However, taking on Howard's point, where are all the additional services such as schools, hospitals, utilities and care for the elderly coming from, and who will pay?
We are taxed out of sight already and our local MPs seem oblivious to all requests to have something done to improve our allocation of central government funding.
Another concern to me is the loss of a strata of our architectural heritage, particularly the Edwardian period and between the world wars, as it seems these 'developers' favour the best houses from those eras in the nicest roads to bulldoze.
Notwithstanding the demise of almost every large pub and roadhouse already 'lost'. We are rapidly losing the finest individual architecturaly and uniquely designed houses in the borough with the finest English gardens in favour of bland, uninteresting blocks of flats and the like.
Something must be done and quick-ly to protect what remains of these beautiful buildings as once they are gone there will be are very large hole in our architectural heritage which can never be replaced.
HOWARD LAMBE,
Elm Grove, Harrow.
