WHAT is it about targets that City of York Council does not understand?

They fail to achieve their housing targets, set unworkable affordable housing targets and, at their recent housing summit, they managed to miss their target audience.

I attended two events aimed at finding solutions to York’s housing shortage and to get housebuilders building.

The problem was that they didn’t seem to have invited any builders. Of the few present, several had to protest in order to be allowed to attend.

The largest event had 80 delegates, which included 38 council officers and seven councilors.

Only two firms building houses in York were represented. The main house-builders – Barratt, Persimmon and Taylor Wimpey – were not there.

It seemed to those who did attend that their numbers had been restricted so their views would be in the minority.

Until the council listens to housebuilders, York will not get the housing it needs.

Paul S Cordock, Durlston Drive, Strensall, York.

 

• FOR the council to claim on the one hand that we need 800 new homes in the city every year and then have to say new builds total only 294, to date of which 124 are student flats, is all we need to say about the affordable housing percentage having wrecked the housebuilding industry.

It must now be time to tackle the problem head-on or we will not see any new homes built.

While the politicians need an affordable housing percentage, it is only a pie-in-the-sky dream if no houses are being built as a result of it.

So why not keep the policy in place but suspend it for, say, 15 years because it will take the building industry some considerable time to get into gear again and produce meaningful results.

If the politicians at the end of that time feel the urge to reactivate their policy, it will give the builders enough notice to start shutting down the industry again.

It is just possible that the surrounding towns and villages are benefiting from York’s loss and building more housing for residents to commute to the city, which may be the actual reason that we are getting more Park & Ride sites around the city?

C L Spray, Trent Avenue, Huntington, York.