Kevin Pyne, of Lake Street, Dartmouth, writes:

I expected a roasting for my opinions regarding holiday homes and over the way ­ordinary harbour houses are being turned into taller, broader glass monstrosities by those who instruct their builders and then clear off, leaving everyone around them to put up with the noise, nails, dust and inconvenience until they are finished, Chronicle, January 8.

And yes, I said nails because I had to have a new tyre just before Christmas – I suspect my tyre was damaged not yards from my property.

I paid £8,000 for my house when I was 22 and some years later £18,000 for my garage – and that was including having it rebuilt. I was offered in excess of £120,000 for it cash a while ago by a guy who looked dumbfounded when I replied: ‘But where would I put my bicycle?’

What chance now have young people to live in their own property in their own town when they are pretty much all minimum-wage slaves?

My own kids are gone and most likely gone forever from their home town to areas where they could get a stake on the property ladder, and I resent this.

However, I do realise that there are those who wish to make their town their permanent home; and as I have said many times, if you want to sit by the fire, all you need do is help gather the wood and you are welcome.

However, if you buy a house and then leave it empty when locals can’t afford to live here, then it seems to me that surely having two homes when others have none is perverse.

Even our traders can’t afford the astronomical rents that greedy landlords now want and our local charity housing stock is now run by those seemingly wanting to profit from what are essentially houses that are left to them to do some good for unfortunates. It is a disgrace that this no longer seemingly happens.

Our council is as bad and our district council: it simply ­doesn’t seem to be able to engage with those it should serve, or indeed to care.

We are cutting the heart out of the place and it will die, or heaven forbid end up directionless and soulless like Torbay, with monstrosities such as ‘Sails’ and that awful aircraft hanger building in the bight, or the never-ending overdevelopment out at the marina.

And yet right over my back garden wall is a residential development that is both ­sensitive and necessary for the community – so yes, it can be done. It’s just that sadly today so very few are prepared to do it.