Mike Stimpson (Opinion, November 8) advocates the provision of affordable

housing by government subsidy, suggesting that existing subsidies paid to housing associations are sufficient to enable them to compete in the open market.

In fact, the grant paid by government towards the cost of social housing is fixed annually. At the same time rents are fixed for the year at affordable levels, well below those of market rents.

Clearly in times of inflations in the property market ,this fixed regime prevents housing associations from being competitive and the only way to enable the satisfactory supply of land is to work through the planning system.

The only alternative would be an open-ended subsidy and/or a housing benefit system, which successive governments have been unwilling to contemplate, or a return to the

general development land tax regimes which were so unpopular in the past.

-David Wilkinson, Chair, Brighton & Hove Housing Partnership