The difficulty of housing asylum seekers in Brighton and Hove (Argus, January 31) highlights the problem facing many local families.

While the refugees have housing trusts and agencies working on their behalf, further fuelling the rise in accommodation prices, who is helping our local young and first-time buyers find appropriate, affordable accommodation?

The Argus property supplement offers properties at vastly-inflated prices, which must make disheartening reading for those not yet on the "property escalator" (more appropriate than "ladder").

This undesirable situation will encourage the planning and housing committees to build "low cost" housing anywhere and everywhere they can, regardless of the service and terrain criteria.

Surely it's not above the realms of possibility for the "experts" to find a solution which controls the rise in property values, gives priority to local families and limits this seemingly uncontrollable misery before the only people able to afford housing in the city of Brighton and Hove are the estate agents.

-G.J. Banfield, Manton Road, Brighton