GIVEN the shortage of housing, the price of private rented property is hardly surprising. However, Coun Tracy Simpson Laing can call for more affordable dwellings until she is blue in the face (Letters, September 24) but they will not be provided by a crippled house-building industry brought to its knees by excessive Government regulatory burdens.

The only way that substantial numbers of new social housing units are going to be provided is by the Government itself commissioning them and paying for them; just like they did in the inter-war years and after 1945. The current policy of extorting them from private enterprise has been an unmitigated disaster and is one of the main factors holding back economic recovery.

The recession will not end until house-builders start building again and that will not happen until government gets off the industry’s back.

Matthew Laverack, Lord Mayor’s Walk, York.