In the UK, a progressive housing policy would seek to ensure an adequate supply of decent affordable homes to those born, living and working in a particular area.

No major political party has such a policy because they all believe themselves dependent on the votes of people whose major political concern is for house prices to go on rising.

So all political parties want to restrict housing supply and keep it a luxury good. Archaic building methods and tight planning restrictions combine to ensure the supply of new housing in the UK falls well below the number of new households being created.

This has been the case for years now. The result is astronomical prices and rents.

In Brighton, a progressive housing policy might involve, for example, putting compulsory purchase orders on whole areas such as Lewes Road, London Road and Viaduct Road and replacing the low-rise and often decrepit buildings there with well-designed, low-maintenance blocks of flats, interspersed with open spaces, and able to house five or ten times the current population of those areas. Or it might involve big developments of "starter" homes on greenfield sites. Neither is going to happen.

The proposed King Alfred development may well include notionally "affordable" housing but its modish design and exposed location mean maintenance costs and potential pressure from "outside" buyers will ensure the housing is far from affordable.

It is an ill-conceived "prestige" development, unlikely to be an answer to any actual housing problems facing the population of Brighton and Hove.

-Trevor Pateman, Brighton