There is a building frenzy in the South East of England. Several million new homes are being crowbar-ed into any space that developers can get their greedy little mits onto. Not only that but the Government is encouraging them with incentives and planning ‘wave-throughs’.

When we lived in Sandhurst, there must have been between 500 and 1,000 new flats built along the A30 between Sandhurst and Sunningdale in the space of two years. The area is one of the most congested places in England.

What’s odd is that the planners are giving permission willy-nilly to the builders of houses but are they putting in any more infra-structure? No – well, not if you think of infrastructure as anything useful like better roads or better public transport. If you think of better infrastructure as more shops that (at best) scrape a living and end up as charity shops in the blink of an eye because the freeholders can’t let them to retail businesses or more office blocks to stand empty, then there are those by the bucket load.

This building site is in Wokingham town centre – apparently, according to the stats, the most expensive place in Britain to live. Three houses were knocked down and forty-four ‘dwellings’ are being built on the land. OK – three was probably not enough – there was certainly enough space to build a dozen reasonable homes there.

The forty-four homes that are being built are ‘retirement’ homes. Little boxes full of people who have been ‘persuaded’ to spend extortionate sums for the security of living with other people in their own situation. There are no garages for the cars or adequate parking. After all – she says with an ironic tone – what do ‘old folk’ need with cars? Please don’t lambaste me for that – I know many people rely on their cars into late life – my beef is with the planners who allow places like this to be built without adequate parking. There is no infrastructure – indeed the entrance access is narrow. There is no outside space. There are no new doctors’ surgeries or healthcare provision planned.

Don’t you think that’s easy money for the developers? Create an atmosphere of fear and insecurity among the aging population, then fleece them of their savings to spend up to £500,000 on a small ‘cottage’ that gives them so-called security and supposedly suitable accommodation for those who are less able to get about. Personally I call it daylight robbery. Don't you also think that if people are in the slightest inclined to just give up and turn up their toes then there couldn't be a greater incentive than to do it in a soul-less, heartless place like this? There is a wonderful stat that says that most of the people who get to the ripe old age of 100 in this country, get there through independent living.

David has a name for modern housing estates – he calls them ‘breeding boxes’. I wonder what moniker he’ll give to these places where people go to wait to die?

Salt was my thing last year