IT was interesting this week being at a special meeting in Droitwich addressing concerns over the 730 new homes planned for the town.

Across South Worcestershire, we can expect up to 14,000 new homes by 2041 as part of the South Worcestershire Development Plan Review.

At the meeting, residents voiced their concerns about how the town would cope with the extra homes, with more than one saying they should be built somewhere else.

To be fair to the council, they have to build the houses somewhere. They cannot tell central government they don't want to.

Whether we like it or not, these homes have to be built, we cannot not build them.

The numbers are staggering: the population of Droitwich for example has risen from 7,000 in the 1970s to around 24,000 today.

Figures like this mean we cannot avoid the necessity of building hundreds of homes.

Put simply, we have to build them somewhere.

It is easy to understand the concerns of residents all over South Worcestershire, the idea of 14,000 more homes is daunting, and will put pressure on services, but they have to be built.

We cannot stop the developments, but we can be smarter about what kind of houses we build, where we build them and for whom we build them.

One of the problems of major developments in recent years has been a tendency to build the wrong size homes.

Many sites are being filled with three, four or five bedroom houses, none of which are suitable for young professionals, couples or first time buyers.

Building those homes brings in a lot of money for developers and makes the numbers look great, but they do nothing to help the housing crisis.

I hope that when planners come to decide on the finalised terms for the SWDP, they will bear this in mind and ensure the right homes are built in the right places.

This also means building on brownfield sites and protecting greenbelt land at all costs.

It is not NIMBY-ism to feel uneasy about housing developments, but it is NIMBY-ism to say "build them elsewhere." - they already are building them elsewhere.