IN the Echo today (May 14) are several pieces on redevelopment and changes of use and one has to question who is changing our quality of life?

Can it really be helpful to pull down one property and put nine in its place? Will all our futures mean living cheek by jowl as our forefathers were forced to do in the 19th century, when the population left the land for city and town life and the lack of space?

First we see the effects on global warming by the destruction of the Brazilian Rain Forest, and the change in levels of carbon dioxide which trees swallow in exchange for oxygen.

What has this to do with our locality, you ask, and you only have to see the effects on life in high rise blocks of flats without adequate car parking or gardens to see the trend.

I thought we had got rid of that closed mentality when Poole moved so many out of squalor after the second World War and the creation of housing estates, each with a garden, across the whole borough. That brought with it a most peaceful and happy time of freedom. Poole was a Beautiful Place.

Not any more. The bridges fiasco, the ripping up of decency and relaxed open spaces, and the drive for extracting as much money from as many as possible by car parking charges, reduced toilets and removing treasured seats placed by members of the public in remembrance.

Then there are open threats to councillors in that other place of the consequence of not approving of a development, to which they kowtow. The rot has set in.

This is not a good time and all power to Christchurch in their challenge to forced amalgamation without residents having any say.

I expect I shall be condemned for having the temerity to question those who do so much in my name without asking.

BRIAN GALPIN, Tatnam Road, Poole