AS part of the Stamp Out Poverty campaign, The Press has followed the introduction of York’s regressive council tax support scheme with some verve.

As a Labour member – and perhaps the most vociferous critic of the scheme – it has caused me some angst.

I therefore want to wholeheartedly applaud the courage and integrity of Cllr Neil Barnes in picking the issue up and admitting Labour got it wrong. That takes guts.

The political posturing elsewhere is extraordinary if it were not for its effrontery. I met Cllr Chris Steward last December and he was not able to offer Conservative support. As for the suggestion the Lib Dems ever expressed their opposition is out-and-out self-delusion.

What matters now is that the scheme is changed to help York’s poorest residents, 14,000 of whom are in arrears.

The council has made a 66 per cent profit off its poorest residents – it recovered £683,000 more than central government cuts according to Joseph Rowntree Foundation. Technical changes to the treatment of void properties have raised an additional £530,000.

Richard Bridge, Holgate Road, York

 

WHAT is meant by the term “affordable housing”?

When I bought my first house 51 years ago, my weekly wage was £9.18s.4p and in those days the building societies would only give a loan based on the man’s wage, so in most cases sacrifices to ones lifestyle had to be made.

Nights on the town had to be cut out, only special occasions were celebrated within a very small budget, second hand furniture was purchased.

In our house our front room was without furniture and our lounge was covered in lino with a small rug in the centre.

We had no telephones never mind a top-notch mobile, no cars, no credit cards and no TV.

If you had not got the cash in your pocket you did without.

Nowadays the younger generation have to have it all today, flashy mobiles and cars, designer clothes, expensive hair cuts, false tanning sessions, nails painted at a salon.

You see them down town spending a lot of money on one night’s pleasure, money they can ill afford. If more of these young people made the sacrifices we made 50 years ago the term affordable housing would never have been invented.

Hard times? They do not know the meaning of the word. Most of their hardship is self-inflicted.

A P Cox, Heath Close, Holgate, York

 

AT a Conservative Party conference fringe meeting, Alex Wild of the Taxpayers Alliance said that cuts to pensioner benefits, such as the winter fuel allowance and free bus passes, must be made “immediately”.

His reasoning was that “some of the people won’t be around at the next election” and “others would have forgotten which party had done it”.

He added: “If you did it now, chances are that in 2020 someone who has had their winter fuel cut might be thinking, ‘Oh I can’t remember, was it this government or was it the last one? I’m not quite sure.”

Conservative MP Liam Fox was sitting next to him and reinforced the need to make such savage cuts. He did not make any statement to chastise Mr Wild for his appalling comments.

While I accept that cutting such benefits for the most wealthy pensioners and for those living abroad may in fact be a good idea, it shows an incredibly callous nature to suggest that the timing of such cuts should be dictated by the life expectancy and memory recall of those affected by them.

The nasty side of the Conservative Party, suppressed for so long during the coalition, is now emerging with a vengeance.

Tony Fisher, Liberal Democrat spokesman, Strensall ward

 

I REFER to your news item ‘City’s housing future planned’ (The Press, September 30).

How can something be planned when York’s coalition council have determined that “the council may not need to make up the shortfall of housing in the first five years of the new plan and should instead plan to cancel out the backlog over the complete length of the plan”.

Where is the direction of planning in that statement? What exactly does that mean?

In my mind, it adds up to procrastination by the council administration.

Put off decisions until a later date.

The housing shortage crisis is not going to go away and therefore plans have to be made and dates to build new, affordable housing need to be set.

Why can’t the coalition council get that into their heads?

What exactly does the comment from Cllr Anne Reid mean when she states: “I think it’s impossible to build ourselves out of high house prices”?

We urgently need housing and affordable and social/council housing, and we need to identify land for houses to be built on and a planned outline of dates they are going to be built.

Howard Perry, Dringhouses, York

 

IN response to Cllr Keith Aspden (Letters, September 28) regarding York’s teardrop development site, I believe the newly-elected Conservative Government has already shortlisted it for assistance to unlock its huge potential.

York’s elected MPs must push for more funding from central government to upgrade York’s outer ring road to ease York’s badly congested roads and make sure York’s brownfield sites are developed to their full potential.

Terry Smith, Heworth, York