The housing crisis is now the biggest single problem facing Brighton and Hove.

Urgent action is needed to help solve it or the city will be engulfed in homelessness.

More people sleep on the streets than anywhere outside London. Thousands of people are on the waiting list.

House prices and rents are soaring while wages remain stubbornly low. Ordinary people cannot hope to buy even a modest terraced home.

There is little land available for building new homes and there is no hope of any more since the city is squeezed between the Downs and the sea.

Is it any wonder that Brighton and Hove has hundreds of families declaring themselves homeless and being housed in temporary bed and breakfast rooms?

Cabinet housing councillor Tehmtan Framroze today, in The Argus, outlines some of the measures being taken by the city council.

They are generally sensible and some are innovative. They involve working with other organisations, such as housing associations and other councils, which do not have the same problem.

But they are not enough. More help is needed from Government.

It needs to back Brighton and Hove's plea for more affordable housing to be a big part of any reasonably-sized development in the city.

Above all, more cash is needed so the council and associations can buy into the private sector and provide more homes. Without these measures, thousands of people will leave the city and hundreds will be homeless in the streets.