The first house I bought cost £4,000, which seemed like a lot of money 35 years ago.

At the time, I read with incredulity a report that, by the end of the last century, homes like that would cost six-figure sums.

But it happened and that house in Elm Drive, Hove, is probably worth about £200,000.

When I was scraping off wallpaper in the front room one day, I came across something pencilled on the wall.

This indicated the original price of the house in the Thirties had been just £500 and the mortgage had been £1 11 shillings and one penny.

That sum was more affordable then to the bus worker, who was perhaps earning the average wage of £5 a week, than it was to me in the Sixties.

I recall the monthly mortgage of £22 equalled my gross weekly wage.

Finding that sum, paid in cash to the Temperance Permanent Building Society in East Street, Brighton, was a struggle.

But these days it would be hard for a bus worker or a provincial journalist to afford the mortgage necessary to buy even that modest home in Elm Drive.

Wages have increased substantially since the Sixties but at nothing like the same rate as house prices - and the gap continues to widen.

Not much can be done about the relentless rise in house prices which I forecast will last longer than the last boom because of the continued flow of Londoners to the Sussex coast. But it is having a dire effect on the city by the sea.

Brighton and Hove Bus and Coach Company has recognised the problem by paying wage increases to staff which are substantially above inflation. But they are not keeping pace with house prices.

The city council is between the Devil's Dyke and the deep blue sea. It cannot build on the Downs and it cannot build on the Channel.

Indeed it cannot build much anywhere because of Government restrictions but it can, and does work, with housing associations.

It is doing its best to get new social housing built on the few greenfield sites remaining and on some brownfield sites.

But it has to look at other ways of giving help and the most effective of these is to stipulate that, in each private housing scheme, a percentage of the homes must be low cost.

The suggested percentage of 40 will be hotly contested by a clutch of developers at the forthcoming public inquiry into the Local Plan. But one developer, Josh Arghiros of Karis Developments has already voluntarily agreed to abide by it.

Not only will he provide that percentage in the controversial development at Connaught Road in Hove, which has already started, but he is also prepared to arrange for 49 of the 126 flats being planned for the old Endeavour site in Preston Road, Brighton, to be low cost.

If Mr Arghiros can do it, then why not other developers? It's because they want to make more money and don't like the idea of low-cost housing in their projects.

I'm remarkably lucky to be a homeowner and thousands of other city folk share my good fortune. But those of us on average or below-average salaries bought our houses a long time ago.

No one wants Brighton and Hove to become a rich enclave for metropolitan refugees. To stop it happening, the city must be more radical about housing, whether for sale or for rent, than ever before. It's not just down to councillors. Developers and employers must help too.