The current administration of City of York claim that we need to build 22,000 new homes over the next 15 years in order to provide for York’s growth, social housing needs and to help young professionals be able to afford to buy.

On my way to work each day for the past few weeks I have been amazed by the sight of the rows and rows of student letting boards on houses in Milton Street, Nicholas St, Lansdown Terrace and Granville Terrace. Almost every other house has one.

In just these four streets there are 50 to 60 student letting properties. These are the type of properties that young professionals and young families could afford to buy, to get onto the property ladder, to live in the city in which they work.

Surely there is a relatively straightforward solution to this?

Make the universities responsible for providing accommodation for ALL their students, if private companies can build ‘halls of residence’ in the city and make a profit then so could the university. If the universities built sufficient accommodation, on and off campus, and charged sensible rents this would reduce the attractiveness of HMOs and student-filled buy-to-lets as money earners for private landlords.

Matthew Clements, Langwith Lane, Heslington, York.