I must respond to a number of points in your front page article and feature on council housing in Brighton and Hove (The Argus, July 18).

Council homes have not suffered from "years of neglect" as your headline claimed.

Millions of pounds have been spent on the homes and Savills, who carried out the independent survey, stated: "The housing stock has been well maintained on a day to day basis and limited outstanding repairs identified."

The council is a responsible landlord and accepts more investment is needed to bring some homes up to the standard we want to provide, and to meet the expectations of tenants.

The age of council housing in Brighton and Hove means a lot of properties will need work to modernise and improve them.

We are also responding to the changing expectations of tenants. Twenty years ago, for example, central heating was considered a luxury, but is now regarded as essential.

The level of investment needed over the next three decades is put at £585 million, not £650 million as your headline stated. While this figure may appear high, we are talking about nearly 13,000 homes over a 30-year period.

Most properties of a similar age, whether privately or council-owned, would need significant repair and improvement over the same period.

Savills found the level of investment required was only slightly higher than the national average.

Some of the problems highlighted in your feature, such as leaking toilets and faulty boilers, are routine day-to-day repairs.

With almost 13,000 properties, there will always been some repairs waiting to be carried out but the overall tenant satisfaction rate with the day-to-day repairs service is more than 90 per cent.

The information from this survey is an important starting point for us to work closely with tenants to look at all the options for improving and investing in their homes.

-Coun Jack Hazelgrove, chairman of housing management committee, Brighton and Hove City Council