With the Laindon School site now a desolate wasteland, we get the owner of building company, Bellway, telling us his application for hundreds of homes will meet "Laindon's aspirations"!

What on earth does he know about our aspirations?

His brief is to stuff as many units of accommodation onto the land he bought, then sell them for the best price he can get.

Let me tell him we in Laindon do not aspire to have four-storey blocks of flats on any part of the site.

We do not aspire see to masses of people moving into the area, responding to the claim "Laindon is the place to be".

We do not relish the idea of more cars trying to get on and off Laindon High Road.

We wonder where the children who presumably will live in the three and four-bedroomed homes will be educated.

We have doubts the leisure facilities in Laindon will meet the "aspirations" of the newcomers.

Last, but not least, we wonder just what is affordable housing?

Every home in the country is affordable to someone.

If the term means cheaper housing, then how is it to be ensured it remains cheaper? Former council houses in Laindon now fetch as much as £250,000.

The aspirations of the people of Laindon are for a shopping centre we can be proud of, where we can buy anything we need for day-to-day life, for roads which can cope with today's traffic, with a margin for more in future and for improved leisure facilities.

We also aspire to an absence of developers who purport to think they are doing us a favour by overloading any piece of ground they can get their hands on with flats.

Victor York
Buller Road
Laindon