As one of the “anti-affordable housing brigade” to whom ex-planner and ex-Labour councillor Dr Roger Pierce refers to (Points on housing, Letters, July 9), I must correct him on his inaccurate misrepresentations.
Firstly, we are not anti-affordable housing. Our objection is to the discriminatory, punitive system of forcing housebuilders to provide social housing using the planning system as a means of blackmail. This is also known as legalised theft.
Secondly, developers are nowhere near compensated for the social housing they have to hand over.
Dr Pierce’s definition of cost plus is massively misleading.
Housing Associations usually pay a set sum which does not fully cover the builder’s costs, and the builder is therefore subsidising the cost at a loss. The land has also to be provided for nothing, and this is where the term “give-away" comes from.
The habitual tendency of Labour councillors and council officers to misrepresent the workings and results of this system, show how desperate they are to hoodwink York residents.
Counting hostel bedspaces as affordable housing shows how deceitful they are prepared to be in covering up their failed policy.
Paul S Cordock Durlston Drive Strensall York
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