SIR, — I read with growing anger, but little shock the amount of problems our county and district councils are heaping on St Albans (Herts Advertiser, April 17), with, it appears, little concern for a solution. It began with the story Scores of parents a

SIR, - I read with growing anger, but little shock the amount of problems our county and district councils are heaping on St Albans (Herts Advertiser, April 17), with, it appears, little concern for a solution.

It began with the story "Scores of parents are still battling to secure their child a place at a (satisfactory) secondary school". My wife and I applied for an infant school place for our child this year. We have four schools within walking distance, but have only been offered one that requires a car journey to get to.

You also report on the traffic jam fears from the new Oaklands College plan which includes "62 flats and houses". Read on and you find Beaumont School want to sell off playing fields to housing developers.

It doesn't end there as there was also an article about plans to knock the old cinema down and build flats, and before anyone says children don't live in flats, mine did for a while and I'm sure others do too.

If that wasn't enough, Tesco's want to build a supermarket, and to help their application they will build yet more housing, while the old Grill Bar and the Renault garage on the London Road were recently demolished and replaced with flats.

Has no one in the district council stopped to think about the problems they are causing by allowing more and more housing to be built, or are they only thinking about the extra council tax revenues they will receive?

St Albans is full. The roads are gridlocked and there are not enough local school places for the children who live here. Allowing more and more houses to be built will only make the matter worse unless something significant is done to improve the situation. Can I therefore suggest that no further building applications are passed until new schools are built and the roads are modified to cope with the traffic.

JAMES CRAIGEN,

Orient Close, St Albans.