CHARLES and Rosy Hunt's letter 'Do we need prefabs?' (July 25) misses the point. There is a significant shortage of affordable housing in York.
The housing identified by them on the website is likely to be old, and to standards that are not contemporary, and which may be cramped and expensive to run.
The Sixth Avenue homes are being built in a factory, making the quality better than traditional homes because they are being built in a safe, warm, clean environment.
Space standards of the homes are excellent, as are insulation levels. Land in York is very scarce and commands high values excluding housing associations competing with private developers.
So we have a responsibility to use land efficiently, which is why we are building apartments here. We can house more people in quality apartments than we can in traditional houses.
This scheme should not be taken out of context. Yorkshire Housing builds up to 200 homes a year, and the Sixth Avenue project represents only an element of our overall programme and, at the moment, the only factory-built scheme. However, we hope to build more homes like this because it makes sense.
Peter Atkinson,
Group Property Director,
Yorkshire Housing,
Prudential House,
Blossom Street,
York.
Updated: 10:14 Wednesday, August 08, 2001
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