THE reason for the York Local Plan and its proposal to build around 17,000 new houses is that all councils have a statutory responsibility to consider the housing, as well as employment needs of their communities.

The reason for the housing shortage is that a previous government allowed council tenants to buy their council houses at hugely discounted rates, while at the same time reducing the amount that local councils were allowed to spend on building new council housing by between 60 and 65 per cent .

If no affordable provision is available to house the ever-growing population, then where are people supposed to live?

In my view, and in the view of the European Human Rights Court, it is a fundamental human basic right to have a roof over your head.

Nationally between 1980 and 1989 over one million council homes were sold off to private purchasers.

Between 1971 and 1980 local authorities built around 110,000 council houses and by 1988 they were only allowed to build around 12,000 – a drop of around one million homes.

The registered homeless between 1978 and 1989 grew from around 50,000 in 1978 to 126,000 in 1989.

The de-regulation of the private rented sector, along with private landlords pushing for increased rents and profits, compounds the housing and debt problem, giving yet more reason for more housing and affordable housing to be built.

H F Perry, St James Place, Dringhouses, York.