Wanstead is a place that has slowly evolved over the centuries.

Go back 100 years, then the area was pretty rural - fields abounded - Wanstead really was a village.

Then the railway and motor car came, bringing their own infrastructure. Housing increased as well, with the various estates being built.

I have lived in Wanstead for more than 50 years, during which time there has been slow change.

The fundamentals, such as the high street and George and Christchurch Greens, have remained pretty much unaltered - improved in some ways, with more focus on biodiversity and attempts to make the area more people-focused.

The biggest changes have been the building of the M11 Link road under George. Previously there had been the building of the A406 and M11.

Both have brought noise and particulate pollution to the area, as well as some economic benefits.

It would be good to live to see those roads occupied by quieter electric vehicles.

Change happens. If it didn’t we would still be in caves. Some change is good, other less so.

As we get older there is a tendency to oppose almost any change - it is a sort of stop the world, I want to get off syndrome.

There is a tendency to look back with nostalgia but forward in a negative way. It is an understandable insecurity.

The opposition though, is often quite irrational. Why for example do we get so concerned about ancient monuments that maybe in decline. Yet things like wind turbines and solar panels - technology needed to save the planet - upset some people aesthetically.

But what is the difference between wind turbines and windmills? Similar technology but widely different perceptions among the public.

The wind turbine is the infrastructural development of the modern age - it says who we are in the way a castle did, for example, for those living in the 15th and 16th centuries.

Change is inevitable. Not all of it amounts to progress and some should definitely be opposed. But the changes need to be considered in the round for the betterment of life on earth, not opposed because some don’ t want to see change.