I was appalled to read Valerie Paynter's letter of July 21, suggesting the creation of dense inner city housing will cause the same level of suffering to its occupants as that of a calf in a veal crate or chicken in a battery cage.

Calves bred for veal spend their short lives incarcerated in metal crates, with bars on the floor while being fed on a diet of watered-down milk so as to make them anaemic and so weak they can barely stand.

Such practice is to ensure pale meat favoured by certain humans.

Battery hens, too, have a miserable existence, spending their entire lives in cages little bigger than themselves.

-Theresa Manser, Shoreham