Leaving a housing crisis to be solved by the private sector just will not work - YEP letters

You reported in the Yorkshire Evening Post on Monday, February 8 that the council wants to buy 40 flats in an attempt to combat extremely poor housing conditions.

Sadly the article suggests that the 40 flats have recently been purchased by a property developer which is looking to make further acquisitions on the site to enable comprehensive refurbishment.

Save our Homes LS26, on which you reported on January 19, are in a similar situation and facing eviction to allow their landlord to develop a site in Oulton which the council refused to attempt to take over to protect a community in desperate need of social housing rather than a bulldozer.

On January 26 you reported that £67m of Government money would be used to prepare sites which otherwise would require too much work to be economically viable for companies to redevelop.

So developers want to make money out of housing sites and will be assisted by an injection of public funds (taxpayers’ money) to help them make profits.

Our Labour council should be building or buying or taking over empty properties to ensure an adequate stock of social housing for rent is available.

Leaving a housing crisis to be solved by the private sector just will not work. Your reports show this time and time again but it seems the lessons are never going to be learned.