Voices is the Dorset Echo's weekly youth page - written for young people by young people.

This week Oliver Streather-Paul talks about housing developments in Dorset.

Complaints and protests have stricken Dorset over developers’ decisions to build more houses around the county.

Whilst it is irrefutable that affordable housing is an issue that plagues would-be property owners, it is also undeniable that it is being put forward in a way that is unsustainable in both the long and short term.

Frankly, we do not have the infrastructure to support housing developments such as the one at Curtis Fields or those on Portland amongst others.

Lanehouse Rocks Road, the Beach Road and the junctions surrounding them often find themselves overloaded with traffic during peak hours, and that comes before considering how backed up Weymouth can become.

Queues for the number one and 10 First Bus services were hardly alleviated by the completion of major roadworks on the Beach Road and in Broadwey respectively - with queues for the former service still backing up around the corner to the Londis store even in off-peak hours.

The fact these queues are present at 4pm on Mondays is aberrant. I am curious to see how a housing boom and the impending tourist season will strain the system.

Furthermore, whilst wardens are taking to the streets to patrol Weymouth, more still needs to be done to tackle crime, with a cartridge having been found after suspected shots fired near Asda.

Alas, adding more people to the community before these issues have been tackled will only add fuel to the fire as it is being extinguished.

Property on Portland has been praised as being cheaper than Weymouth, with pre-existing properties beginning around the £100,000 mark according to The Guardian (2017) and below £50,000 according to Rightmove.

A resident of the Ocean Views apartments, who did not wish to be named, claimed that half of the apartments are in-fact uninhabited at reasonable prices, so the sentiment is evidently shared that there is not a need for any more housing.

Portland’s natural beauty and history is being further encroached upon, too.

The age-old treeline surrounding Tesco is being eroded into with houses, slowly chipping away at the island’s past and to quote The Guardian's Tom Dyckoff: "I miss trees - a precious commodity on this blasted isle."

By Oliver Streather-Paul