After reading Keith Percy's letter (Say no to housing development plans, October 26) I decided to read the proposals for Sutton in the document Core Planning Strategy: Policy Issues and Options.

I found the proposed changes outlined in it for society in Sutton up to 2020 extremely worrying. Even more worrying was a glaring inaccuracy on page 11 of the document. It claims that the current population in the borough is 182,738 and that it is expected it to increase by 3.4 per cent by 2016 to reach 186,252. It should, of course, read 188,951, which is almost 2,700 more. Are their predictions for the future based upon this inaccurate figure?

In Netley Close we are, at the moment, fighting against a proposal to build 17 flats which would increase the population of the close by approximately 50 per cent and would alter life as we know it dramatically.

We already suffer from severe parking and drainage problems and if this development goes ahead our problems will be further exacerbated.

After reading the Core Planning Strategy I feel that the futures equally grim for many of the borough's local communities. Life will be radically altered. As Martha Hoffman states in her essay Rats and Population: "As space becomes harder to come by, and humans are frequently forced to live in more densely populated areas, crime and other problems increase."

DAVID STEMP Netley Close Residents' Association