Simon Fanshawe

He wondered whether I was as delighted as he was. Well, I'm not really. I'm not intending to sell. And even if I was, I'd have to pay the same to buy another home.

But I felt a terrible smugness. I haven't done anything except live here. The flat may be "worth" a shed-load more, but all that actually means is that I've got some fundamentally uninteresting personal experience to contribute to that annoying middle class dinner party topic

of how much money people have made on their houses.

I'm not blaming my neighbour. He's not alone. Two thirds of Brighton and Hove is talking about the cash they've made on their homes. Meanwhile the other third can't even think about affording a flat with a shared bedroom, let alone one with a dining room in which to chatter about their kill on the housing market.

Our attitude to house prices is rather like our attitude to the tabloid Press. All the poll evidence suggests that we think it's the very last thing in bad taste and ghastliness to intrude on the lives of all sorts of folk from Princess Diana down. But still we buy the papers. We still read the stories. We still create the market for the papers we disapprove of.

It's the same with house prices. We wring our hands with genuine sympathy for the families whose stories the Argus has told over the last week.

We feel terrible at the tale of Gary Robinson and Lisa Newman, whose landlord is selling and who can't afford to rent somewhere new. He is being forcibly separated from his kids and it breaks our hearts. Yet we'd probably all sell tomorrow if we got the chance to make what estate agent Glen Mishon called in Saturday's paper "the one other move upmarket left in us before the children are off our hands".

Houses in our economy have stopped being homes. They are now assets. People borrow against them to buy a new kitchen, build a garage or go on holiday. Banks crazily make loans for new businesses against people's homes so that if the business fails, the family is not only without income, but threatened with homelessness too.

People use them to make money.

And the current trend is to blame all of this on prosperity, the city bid, the promotion of Brighton and Hove or that old fall-back "the council".

The argument goes that the more we promote the town, the more people want to live here. So people come down from London, force locals out of their homes who then try to rent in the private sector, but can't afford it, so they go to the council who can't house them because there is not enough public housing.

It's a frightening circle of an argument. But surely the answer is not to stop promoting the towns. The aim of the city bid has always been to inspire and encourage prosperity and investment in the towns so there are more jobs at better wages with more security.

Wealth in the town means nothing if it is not inclusive. We need to continue to promote the town, to try to increase the number and quality of jobs so that people can afford housing.

We cannot stand still, dreaming the small town dream. That will not bring jobs to those who are unemployed and it won't increase the wages of those in low- paid employment. The only way to tackle those twin humiliators is to attract investment and encourage people to start businesses.

We cannot control the housing market, we - or, more properly, the Chancellor - can only try to mitigate its effects. So we should argue for greater investment to improve the quality of public housing and housing associations and a guarantee of cheaper housing as part of mixed developments. All of which would mean higher taxes. Maybe we should tax the profits made on the sale of homes.

But you can hear the squeals now. And the people squealing are those at at dinner bragging discreetly about the "amazing cash offer we had on the house yesterday".

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.