There is no need for Ryedale Council to investigate why so many sites have planning permission but are not being developed. I can tell them for free. It has little to do with “land banking” where a developer deliberately sits on approved sites. There is no sense in that because the asset is not working and the permission expires after three years.

No, the reason usually is because the planning permission contains so many conditions and/or obligations that there is no incentive to actually go ahead with it.

The planning permission often has not been obtained by a “developer”, ie a housebuilder, but by the freehold owner of a particular building or parcel of land; hoping to sell his holding to someone with the skills, finance and motivation to implement the approved scheme.

But after going to great lengths and expense to get that permission the freehold owner often then discovers the permission has so many expensive caveats that he cannot sell his holding for a worthwhile figure.

What all planning authorities need to realise is that if you want people to do something (like build houses) then you need to make it easy for them; not difficult.

It should come as no surprise at all that planning permissions with onerous conditions and prohibitive demands do not turn into bricks and mortar.

Matthew Laverack, Lord Mayors Walk, York

I REFER back to The Press coverage of the Budget (November 23) when The Press stated that “The main theme of the 65-minute Budget was moves to address the nation’s housing shortage and home ownership struggles”.

Little more than a week has elapsed and the dust has not begun to fall on the Treasury’s ‘red book’ yet I read in The Guardian about the “Lack of affordable homes pricing out 100,000 families each year”.

According to Savills Estate Agents, ‘almost 100,000 households in England are priced out of the property market each year because of a shortage of affordable homes to rent or buy...This in part is due because of a change in how housing need is assessed, but also because of rising prices and stagnant wage growth’.

In the Budget the Chancellor reiterated a pledge to build 300,000 houses a year by the mid-2020s. Savills have said that a third of those would need to be offered at below market prices to meet the growing need for affordable homes.

About 96,000 households are unable to afford the market rate, either to buy or rent, with the vast majority in the south.

In October, Theresa May promised £2 billion over four years for social housing. Savills said housing 100,000 households would need £7 billion a year.

While the Chancellor’s Budget cut to Stamp Duty for home buyers is welcome, the overall aspect of the Budget still means that the very rich will still live in paradise while the poorer families will still struggle to keep their heads above water.

Howard Perry, St James Place, Dringhouses, York

HOW appropriate are A P Cox and Howard Perry’s letters re Communities Secretary Sajid Javid’s remarks blaming baby boomers in their 70s for the housing shortage (The Press, November 20).

In 1967 I did a six-year apprenticeship working on newspapers and my wage for a 39-hour week was £18.0s.3d. My wife and I bought our first house which cost £3,100 on an 80 per cent mortgage and had difficulty getting that as they did not hand out mortgages easily in those days.

I can imagine what it is like for young people buying these days, with many in low paid jobs and little security with zero hours contracts.

I have never been homeless or lived on the streets but I, like most people, can image what misery life must be for those people.

As for Howard Perry’s comments on ‘Right to Buy’ contributing to today’s housing shortage, he is quite right.

When Margaret Thatcher came to office she said ‘Everybody should own their own home’. Her government sold council houses to the tenants at a reduced value, then closed much of British industry for the good of the country. Now hardly anybody can afford their home as many good paid jobs were lost when industries were closed and not replaced by other jobs.

She maybe intended well, but those houses did not belong to the tenants or the government of the day. They belonged to the nation. I don’t blame people for buying their houses, I would have done the same myself. The quality of that housing stock was raised by people owning their own home but was not replaced with new council houses for future generations.

W Harrison, St Oswalds Road, York.