With the building of clusters of tower blocks in several areas comes greater demand on all of the services and surrounding infrastructure. It has been suggested that this helps increase public space, but clearly only if that space is there in the first place. In many of the areas selected, it is not.

One of the most obvious public areas to become oversubscribed is road space. While developers market mega projects as including pleasant pedestrianised areas, these are rarely public parks and the strain is inevitably increased on the road infrastructure.

Recent posting online have identified certain parking shortfalls of some developments, such as the fact that the Town Square project may have a parking shortfall of as many as 234 spaces. In addition, the developers subscribe to the old fashioned idea that each residence gets only one parking space, perhaps with a few exceptions. This is hardly realistic or in line with reality.

Perhaps the developers are hoping to squeeze a further 234 cars into the locality or expect 234 of their own residents to keep bicycles in their apartments? Both options might seem bizarre, but given that it has been suggested that an additional 6,000 car trips a day could occur, putting people on bicycles and low-capacity motorcycles may be the answer.

The infrastructure is largely there already, even though there will have to be some changes to create safe routes to cycle. Some parking areas may have to go or be moved elsewhere to allow for motorcycle parking bays, pedelec docking stations and segregated bicycle superhighways, but these usually pay dividends by encouraging people to switch to two wheels.

Violeta Bulc, the European Commissioner for Transport, recently said that bikes are the most efficient way to get across small cities. Compared to the cost of a metro system, a bicycle infrastructure costs nothing to build.

Simply put, if we want towers, or if these are to be forced upon us, we really need to start taking bicycle transportation seriously.