Many years ago there was a protest song entitled “Where have all the flowers gone, long time passing…..” which could easily be changed to “Where have all the green fields gone, swallowed up with housing – everyone.”

With the cost of land being so exorbitant, developers are pushing more and more houses onto sites, building the slums of the future as the Victorians did with their rapid growth expansion at the turn of the last century.

However, the Victorians knew the value of recreational green spaces for everyone and made allowance for parks and open spaces.

Present day planners and developers have lost that sense of value and in the case of Bridgwater are apparently giving no breathing space with the continuous ribbon building swallowing up existing green fields as well as snipping away at open sites such as Brewery Field, Cranleigh Gardens and Fair Field.

It could be stated that all estates have an amenity area nowadays but they are generally small patches of land usually laid out with a children’s play area as the gardens allowed in modern building are so pokey they cannot keep an active child occupied.

There is nowhere that residents can actually enjoy a proper walk unless they are able to get in the car and drive to the Quantocks as many public footpaths are being diverted or closed down completely with the amount of intensive building being carried out.

I am fully aware that according to the government there is a housing shortage but that does not give adequate reason for planners to ignore the density of these estates.

Allowance should be made for some large green spaces known as parks to be incorporated into the building of these huge estates that are developing around Bridgwater.

The people living in these properties could then enjoy the feeling of space and open air which is generally advocated as a necessity for healthy living.

Lynda Laird

Cannington