I am writing in reference to three of your letters in last week's Gazette regarding the new development at Hayes Station. (A different slant on this project; A real benefit to the town centre; and Hayes its good news at last, Letters, August 6).

What exactly would you expect two major players in this development to tell you other that this is an exciting, positive and wonderful thing to happen to Hayes and its residents?

Hayes is a struggling town, and its residents do have to think twice about visiting it at night.

Just read the local Gazette to get a picture of what happens on a regular basis.

Drug busts, muggings and such are an everyday occurrence.

Just how many more restaurants and take aways does Hayes Town need, when almost every other shop is one at present?

Looking around the area we already have far too many empty office buildings, and yet there are more being developed, according to David Brough, chairman of Hayes Partnership.

I welcome new investment to Hayes, and additional funding for services such as education and health is a good thing, but these services are already hugely overstretched: the increase in residents to Hayes that this development will bring can only exacerbate these pressures.

John Turner, the director of Ballymore Properties says that this development will 'support the attraction of Hayes as an employment destination and that there has been overwhelming levels of support from the local community for this development.'

That's all well and good but nobody has bothered to mention the severe traffic and parking issues that this and other planning applications such as the proposed 50-bed hotel and public house on The Golden Cross site, in Botwell Lane, will bring.

The owners of The Golden Cross have submitted a planning application to the council to build a 50-bed budget hotel, together with the demolition and rebuild of said public house.

What does Hayes want with another 50-bed hotel, especially with the building of the two hotels at the Hayes station site?

A quick search on any Internet site will show that there are over 1,000 hotel and guesthouse rooms available in the Hayes area on any one day.

Ever since the decision to close Hayes Town to through traffic was made, our streets have become gridlocked.

No street surrounding Hayes Town is safe.

Cars park on both sides of residential roads, residents are forced to turn their gardens into car parks, and just one road accident on the Hayes bypass or at Hayes station sends the traffic system into a frenzy.

Buses are redirected down residential streets, juggernauts, lorries and vans cause havoc trying to pass on narrow roads.

More people means more traffic, more parking issues for residents and more resentment toward the council for allowing such developments to be built.

Shabna Shah needs to take the blinkers off and have a good look at Hayes Town.

In reality it is a ghetto, with too many empty buildings and too much crime.

To suggest that those opposed to the development are veiled racists is appalling.

Those opposed are existing residents who do care about their environment, who want a better quality of life for themselves and their families and are fed up with the racist card being played whenever they defend themselves.

What on earth gives Shabna Shah the right to assume that if they don't like it residents can 'opt to move out?'

I am sure that there are an awful lot of residents who wish that were the case, but given the financial climate and the impact that these developments will have on house prices in the area, that option is not there for the majority of us.

NAME AND ADDRESS SUPPLIED.