Shelter has produced a report showing that, outside London, Brighton and Hove is the most unaffordable town or city in the South East when it comes to young people trying to get on to the housing ladder.

Shelter calculates that a childless couple would have to save for 10.2 years, a couple with children for 18.6 years, and a single person for 21 years, before being able to afford a deposit.

The figures are based on average wages, house prices, rents and spending.

The chances of first-time buyers being able to afford a home in Brighton and Hove has been well beyond the reach of ordinary people for some time.

They have been priced out by escalating property prices caused by an acute shortage of affordable housing, people selling up in London and moving to the coast, and private investors, some of whom have no interest in living in the homes they buy.

We must put an end to the right to buy, which is seeing the loss of social housing and later re-emerging at rents three times their former level.

We also need housing associations to build homes for rent at affordable levels, something many no longer do.

Home ownership in parts of Brighton has become the preserve of the cash rich and the asset rich.

Andy Winter

Chief executive Brighton Housing Trust