THE piece on the front page of Friday’s Echo provided a disturbing illustration of the need for our councils in this part of the world to get together.

Firstly, the MP for Christchurch grabbed another headline by suggesting that, in voting to bring the conurbation within one council, Bournemouth is doing it just to grab Christchurch’s land to build houses.

In response, Bournemouth council’s cabinet member for housing matters denied that was the case and stated that Bournemouth had built or converted no less than 200 housing units in the past 10 years (that’s an average of just 20 units a year in a conurbation of 400,000 people).

Then there was a quote from a Poole councillor saying that the only way forward seemed to be to build high-rise flats alongside Poole’s main roads.

Ok, the usual knockabout stuff we may say... Maybe, but can I suggest we reflect again on the exchanges from the viewpoint of the many young families living in sub-standard accommodation right across our conurbation with little or no chance of getting on the housing ladder.

Not the greatest outlook or encouragement for them, is it?

I believe this shows, yet again, the urgent need to have one strategy for one conurbation - with one representative council addressing this and the other big issues facing us around economic investment, social care, traffic gridlock and our special environment.

DOUGLAS EYRE

Kirby Way, Bournemouth

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