I REFER to your lead article; '£5 million for 8,000 new homes' (Press, October 7). What I write here is almost a re-hash of what you were good enough to publish recently regarding the planned development at Broomhall.

My question again, quite generally and UK-wide: why is urban sprawl ongoing, blighting landscapes and impacting bio-diversity in the process? Where are all these potential occupants supposed to come from?

Since 1974, the UK birthrate has been below the replacement rate of just over two kids per woman. The population was 56 million, yet it's now at least 67 million, fuelled by mass immigration. That's great news for landlords and employers (higher rents, lower wages) but the losers are tenants, first-time buyers and employees, as we all are in terms of hospital waiting lists, road congestion, social conflicts etc.

It's high time we were far more selective about immigration, attracting quality rather than quantity.

Folks; if you think urban sprawl in Dunfermline is bad, just look across to the Lothians. Smack to the east of Edinburgh Airport, a large development has begun (on a flood-plain!) and visible from the railway line in East Lothian, the ground is being prepared for two massive ones.

Another argument for stopping expansion: at a time when the vulnerability of our food supply chains is clear for all to see, greater self-sufficiency is what our governments should be focused on. Concreting-over prime farmland is plain stupid.

But now comes the good news. The Dunfermline plan is pie in the sky, pure land speculation. It's a 30-year plan, and well before this decade is out a severe reality-check will have taken place: the banks' skyscraper of cards will have collapsed and, probably in conjunction with that bust, there will be a game-changing war (America v China).

George Morton, 
Hudson Road, 
Rosyth