Housing now

The Voice Of The Argus said the long-term solution to our housing crisis must be to provide more social housing.

Unison supports council tenants' call for a fair vote on any option over the ownership or management of their homes.

Low-paid public- sector workers also know first-hand how difficult it is to find safe, secure and affordable housing. This is an issue that affects all those in housing need in the city.

Housing output is lower now than at any time since 1924. Local authority building has more than halved since 1994 and, as for housing associations, they too will produce half the output next year as ten years previously.

As a proportion of our total economy, housing investment is half that of Germany.

Almost a million units of public housing have been sold since 1984. David Lepper MP and Des Turner MP have both signed motions in the House of Commons supporting the call for improved investment in public housing.

Gordon Brown's recent spending increases for housing must be repeated year after year to make a difference to this disastrous legacy of neglect.

More money still pours into B&B and private landlords and into dealing with the hidden health and welfare costs of poor housing.

Why then is the Government now trying to force councils to accelerate the sell off? Why will it not give the council the same access to funds as the private sector or the investment to buy rundown property or brownfield land such as the huge Brighton Station site to meet local needs?

We desperately need public housing, not more supermarkets and it's just not good enough for the Government to allow Sainsbury's short-term profits for shareholders to take priority while people in need of housing have literally nowhere to go.

Why, in short, is the Government prepared to abandon this third pillar of the welfare state to out-of-control market forces and Euro-inspired public spending limits?

-Steve Foster Brighton and Hove Unison, Town Hall, Brighton